Whatever Happened to Robot Jones? Continued
by MozaWesterburg
Summary: Working off the established episodes, characters, and relationships, this story attempts to continue the adventures of the awkward, well meaning automaton and his band of outcast friends during their middle school years, and all the laughter and heartbreak of growing up.
1. Friday

Part 1: Miss-Fortunate

* * *

The room was unusually dark that morning when Shannon woke. Her head felt heavy, as if she didn't get enough sleep. What time was it? She instinctively turned her head to look at the clock on her nightstand. No, it was definitely time to get up. There was a hot shower and a glass of sweet chocolate milk waiting for her: Her reward for accomplishing the task of getting up.

She was vaguely aware of noises coming downstairs. One sounded a bit like her mother. And the other one was definitely dad. His voice sounded… out of place. Distant. Even more so, he sounded mad. The deep, masculine voice was shouting words that Shannon couldn't understand. Were they yelling because she wasn't up yet? No, her father would just come in and wake her. This didn't sound like busy weekday morning shouting.

The anxiety to leave the room filled her like an empty glass. She fumbled with the covers, but she felt like a jellyfish in a net. When she finally got them off her, she caught one word her father shouted: "Mistake?!" before the rest of his words turned to muffled nonsense.

She peered down when her feet hit the floor, and her eyes beheld two tall, perfectly symmetrical legs holding her upward. The shouting downstairs was getting louder, but none of it made sense. Benji. _He's gotta be a crying wreck_ , Shannon thought, head still heavy. _I need to get to him._ Reluctant responsibility took over, and she made her feet move. The last thing she wanted to do was console the brat, but he didn't deserve to be traumatized.

It wasn't his fault he was everything their parents wanted.

Her mother shouted something that sounded like, "How could they know?!" and the rest was drowned in sobs. What a terrible morning this was going to be. But what were they arguing about?

She kept moving closer to the door, but it was moving further away. It was going to take an eternity at this rate. Why couldn't she think clearly? Everything felt like she was underwater.

That voice. She didn't pick up on it earlier because it was drowned out in the sound of the shouts, but she heard it. The screams. Benji. It was slowly rising and growing louder, louder than her parents. Closer.

The door continued to move away from her, faster now. She picked up speed, but it was like running on a treadmill, the voice of her brother trickling in through the cracks under the door. _Benji. Mom. Dad. What happened?_

For Shannon, it wasn't the mysterious elusive door, or the abnormal shouting in her home, or the voice of her father, or the screams of her brother, now closing in on her. It was her feet. She couldn't feel either of her feet on the floor. On the carpet. She was running and her feet weren't feeling anything. Neither of them felt the worn-down fibers. Neither of them felt anything.

Her eyes snapped open. Blinding sunlight poured in from the window in front of her nightstand. She forgot to shut her blinds last night and paid the price for it. She closed them again, whispering a curse, and felt for her left leg beneath the covers. Metal. That had been a dream. This was reality.

The once plush, now crusty stuffed animals-remnants of her childhood-stared at her from the corner of the bed lined up against the wall. Always smiling. Always smiling for their mistress. Thinking more, she realized that in her dream, she knew it was time to get up when she looked at the clock, but she couldn't remember the time it read, or if it had numbers at all. A flash image of younger girl's posters of puppy dogs and horses remained as part of the dream's memory of her room when it was younger, but that image was it. No detail. Another flash image of a toy she didn't have anymore. Now obvious of how much more detail there was to observe during her morning routine, it seemed foolish that she fell for this dream every time. She hit her fist against her right knee, only to remember that _that_ knee was the real knee, and cussed in the sudden blast of pain. _I could win an award for being so stupid._

She decided to walk off the pain, staring down at her body just like in her dream and trying to embrace the fact that she walked on two very different legs now. The only good thing about a metal leg was that it had no nerve endings. Losing it had been excruciating, from what she could recall after the drugs snatched away most of her consciousness at the time. Now she'd never feel pain in that part of her ever again. At least fifteen percent of her body would never feel anything ever again. Not a scratch. Not a caress. Not a tickle. Not the water splashing against it as she swam in the community pool, or the wind hitting her leg as she biked. Nothing.

Shannon tossed off the covers aggressively and forced herself to stand. The stiff, dirty feel of the carpet on only one set of her toes further proved that this was the beginning of the real day. Her eyes squinted in the sunlight and searched for the calendar she had hanging on the opposite wall. Though she didn't look at it every morning, it was that time of year when she found herself reluctantly crossing off every day, until the fateful morning when it was _that_ date again. The date that everything changed.

Coincidentally, she woke at the hour that the sunlight still creeping in between the blinds hit the bottom of the calendar like horizontal prison bars. Giant Xs were carefully drawn into every box leading up to the day she dreaded the most. There was but the empty squares remaining until Shannon could cross off that day, and go about the rest of her year with nary as much dread. She picked up a marker on her desk and crossed off the previous day, now that it was over, so that only one square remained until it was the date that was invisibly circled in her head. _Tomorrow,_ she told herself. _It's not until tomorrow._

Even when she tried so hard to distract herself, she couldn't shake the feeling that it was coming. The anniversary of the day she lost her innocence was only one day away, and the memories always found ways to creep up on her, even when she was on her guard.

After Shannon bathed herself-freezing water to whisk any remaining sleep and the nightmare that came with it-and changed into an absurdly comfortable sweater and shorts, she found her parents-or what remained of her parents-in the kitchen. Talking. Smiling. Her mother sipping coffee and wiping off the counter. Her grandfather drinking orange juice and talking about the latest presidential scandal on the front page of the newspaper, and how each generation was more dishonest than the last. Nobody was shouting, crying, or sobbing. The sun was pouring into the kitchen from the window above the sink, bringing happiness with it. Time had chased away the nightmare and every detail with it. As such, her remaining family had reached a point where they could laugh and converse, and have what were mostly normal days. In fact, from the surface, you'd never know there was anything wrong with her family, other than how particularly and sadly small it was. Neither parent nor grandparent bore the signs of their loss on their skin, and from what Shannon could tell, they weren't still plagued with the nightmares, either. They shouldn't be. They didn't do anything wrong.

"'Morning, shug'," Mrs. Westerburg said, a song in her voice. Her ruby painted lips were pulled in an effortless smile. She was so looking forward to seeing Shannon finally up that it took her a second to notice the way she'd dressed today, at which point that smile did become strained. "Did you see the new clothes I picked out for you? They were on your bed last night."

"I did," Shannon said, reaching into the cabinet above the stove for a bowl, mildly disturbed that she could already reach that high (hence her mother's constant efforts to buy her new clothes). If she kept growing at this rate, she might graduate high school with Paul Bunyan, Bigfoot,and the green leafy dude from the vegetable cans. "I just decided to wear something warmer today." Shannon had seen the mini skirt and ruffled crop tops sitting on her bed, and decided immediately that they were too much effort for her. No point in bringing that much attention to herself. Not today. Not after the nightmare, when she just wanted to shrink away.

"It is chilly out," her mother agreed, rubbing her shoulders. It was cold, even for fall, so Shannon's excuse flew. Neither her mother nor her grandfather mentioned, however, that Shannon was still wearing shorts.

Grabbing the sugar flakes out of the top of the fridge, Shannon set the bowl and cereal down on the counter. A morning like this called for hot oatmeal or pancakes, and the sight of the cold cereal made her feel sick, but if she was going to walk to school, she'd didn't have time to wait for her mom to make anything else.

After forcing down five spoonfuls, just to keep her stomach quiet until lunch, she picked up her books, pencil case and wallet, and headed for the door. Her mother stopped her only to kiss her cheek and run her fingers through her uncombed hair.

Sometimes it was painful to look at her mother. Between a full, round face, even tan and natural poise, it was questionable that they were even related. In photographs, someone might point out their hair and eye color being the same, but for as long as Shannon could remember, she always looked more like her dad. It was Benji who had rocked the eastern seaboard when he was born, inheriting all of mom's good looks with just enough of dad to retain boyishness.

On top of that was her mother's unbelievable resilience. How she managed to wake up every morning for two years now and act like nothing had happened was infuriating.

The walk to school was even colder than she'd thought. Her right leg had been trained to be comfortable with the batter of the wind and the occasional touch of her freezing prosthetic, but her fingers were going numb. She leaned her books up against a tree with her knee while she yanked the sleeves of her sweater over her hands, then resumed the walk. Despite the bright sunlight, there was nobody out but early morning dog walkers and tight-clothed joggers. If she were lucky, sometimes they were 20 something guys with facial hair and visible abs who winked as they went by. Today they were all early to middle aged women, and either way, Shannon wasn't in the mood to be seen by a cute boy today.

The weather kept her at a fast pace, and she made it to Polyneux with over twenty minutes to spare. She sprinted up the stairs to her 2nd floor locker in time to see, through the nearby window, the first buses unload students into the back of the building. Dozens of loud, attention hungry kids shoving their way through the halls, either looking for their friends or on their way to the cafeteria to get some of the school's breakfast-whatever they didn't sell yesterday served with a side of artificial scrambled eggs, served at twice the cost of a regular lunch. _Now that's how a public school makes up the difference between this year and last year's budget,_ she overheard Madman mention proudly to another faculty member.

Complimentary to her room at home, which constantly looked like a tornado had just blown through, Shannon's locker was trashed. She often thought about decorating it with photographs of rock stars, candy wrapper chains and mirrors, like some of the other girls did, but she was wildly uninterested in the work involved. As she crammed her math book into an empty space on the top shelf and hunted for her English book, some of the new voices coming from the stairwell at the end of the hall struck her as familiar. She peeked her head from behind the door of her locker and saw Socks, Mitch, Cubey, and Robot step out from behind the heavy wooden door, all laughing at a joke that Shannon couldn't make out due to the muffled echo of the stairwell. Unlike Shannon, the boys were decked out in heavy pants as well as jackets. All except for Robot, who wore nothing more than he did any other day-just his paint.

"And that's why Sally's mom never buys bananas anymore," Socks told them.

"Was it really that big?" Mitch asked.

Socks held out his hands, so that a half a foot of space was between them. "'Bout so."

"Wow," Robot said, with genuine surprise in his computerized voice.

"I didn't know they even got that big," Cubey said, still chuckling.

While the discussion of bananas had her stomach growling, Shannon's attention was locked on the automaton. It had been an entire semester since the rainy day bus incident, but it felt as if absolutely nothing changed since then. Other than the boys sprouting more facial hair, and the girls sprouting... well, other things, time had drawn to an eerie stillness since the day Robot and Shannon got their first real glimpse at each other for who they were. And Robot had not so much as uttered a word to Shannon since then.

Six months without Robot dogging her. It wasn't the relief she thought it was going to be. While she didn't have to deal with him embarrassing her anymore, she felt like the lonely gaps of her life suddenly ripped open wide. Life her family, it seemed time had healed for Robot what it couldn't for Shannon. Why was it that the more that Robot ignored her, the harder it was to ignore him in return? How come normality had returned to everybody but her?

Then, Robot's head turned to look down the hallway. Shannon made the terrible mistake of looking too long. His eyes met hers from her peeking spot behind the locker door. At one point in time, this was the moment where Robot would become the most human like he could be. His legs would start shaking. His eyes growing larger. His words stammered. And all the while, smiling like an idiot.

But now, it seemed sight of her drained that liveliness out of him. That enchanting smile that he wore when he came through the stairwell fell, so that his face returned to its default flatness. At once, he became a robot again.

He kept walking with his friends, who didn't seem to notice his sudden quietness. It was too late for Shannon to duck and run for first period class, so she stood there and tried to make it look as if she was organizing her locker, waiting for them to pass.

Because Socks was with them, however, there was no chance. "Hey Shannon! Did you hear the score last night?"

She plucked a broken plastic ruler she'd never used from a corner of the locker that she suspected had been there since 6th grade, letting old homework sheets flutter to the floor. "102 to 70. Rainbows did good."

"You weren't there last night," Socks commented, bending over to help pick up her papers. Mitch and Cubey also reached out to help, but Socks had already grabbed them all. None of the boys were watching Robot, who regarded Shannon with the least of concern in his eyes.

"Well, I had homework to do," She said, stuffing sheets back into the empty spaces of her shelf.

"Not makeup work for this junk, right?" Socks commented, holding out a piece of F- math paper that had slid beneath the lockers. Shannon snatched it from him. Her homework grades had stayed afloat since Robot's tutoring sessions had ended, but just barely. And she still bombed every other test. Once again, Robot surprisingly had no comment.

"I'm getting better at it," Shannon snapped, "Unlike you!"

Socks shrugged and rolled his eyes. "You're not lying."

"Hey Socks, gotta meet with a teacher before class," Mitch said. "I'll catch you later?"

"Sure, man," Socks said.

"And I gotta split to get some breakfast," said Cubey, kicking his skates away. "Make sure not to step on any sidewalk cracks or break any mirrors, you guys!" With that, he headed towards the end of the hall after Mitch.

The confusing comment pulled Robot out of his reverie. "I will be sure not to do those specific things," he said, tipping his head, looking at Socks. "But why would I want to do them anyway?"

"It's just superstition," Socks explained. "On Friday the 13th, everybody's extra careful not to give themselves any bad luck."

 _Friday the 13th._ Shannon was so busy remembering that it was the 13th that she forgot what day it fell on this year-a _Friday_.

"Humans behave differently on Friday the 13th due to the belief that they'll bring themselves bad luck?" Robot said, giving himself a moment's pause to download further information. "Hm... there's no proof to this that I can see, except for a strain of famous circumstances. Conclusion: Another typical human irrationality."

"I wouldn't be so quick to call it irrational, Robot," Socks said, tugging on his collar, eyes darting up to the ceiling and whatever greater power could hear them. "A lotta _weird_ stuff happens on these days, like-"

Suddenly, the shelf that had been holding all of Shannon's heaviest books refused to deal with her abuse anymore, and one of the tiny screws broke. The shelf collapsed, sending nearly everything in her locker falling out onto the floor. Textbooks, old homework, study packs, pencils, pens and other personal items flying onto the floor, just as another wave of students passed. Shannon had tried to catch most of it with her hands, but she couldn't hold it all, and many of it slipped out of her arms, including two heavy science textbooks-one that hit her real foot. She cursed so loud she thought Madman would hear it from his office.

"-like that," Socks muttered with a wince.

A couple of the girls passing giggled as they watched Socks and Shannon bend over again to help pick up her things. Instead of standing by and watching with his blank expression, Robot was now obligated to help, too. He caused the crowd of kids to bend around him, ignoring when they shouted obscenities his way, and picked up the papers that had flown further away, while Socks and Shannon concentrated on the main mess.

"I get the worst lockers," Shannon hissed, trying to control her swearing. "First I get one that sticks, then I get one with a bad shelf!"

"It's not you, Shannon, it's Friday the 13th doing it's thing," Socks said calmly, as if it were fact.

"Or it could be," Robot said, folding his arms, "Because the human overloaded it. But go ahead and keep blaming it as the work of a faulty appliance, or some supernatural force."

It felt like the hallway had instantly froze silent, as there were nobody but Robot's friends to react to that comment. Socks and Shannon exchanged dumbfounded expressions. Snarky comments from Robot weren't unheard of, but directed at _Shannon?_

What made it worse was that there was not a trace of amusement on his face as he said this, and marched to the end of the hallway to give himself and the humans some space.

As Socks and Shannon slowly pulled their eyes away from the pouting automaton and continued cleaning up the mess, Socks reached for a textbook just close enough to Shannon to whisper in her ear: "What was that about?"

"What are you asking me for?" Shannon asked back quietly.

"I've _never_ seen him mad at you," Socks continued, still stacking papers to look inconspicuous. "What'd you do?"

"Why are you so sure that _I_ did something?" Shannon whispered back, with a defensive tone coming out.

When she reached out far for another sheet of paper, Socks went for it at the same time. The result was that their hands touched-nay, his hand lay perfectly on top of hers. It was so unexpected that neither of them thought to pull away immediately. They made eye contact, and both realized they were being watched. The person who just so happened to look up when he heard both of them pause was Robot, on his knees, looking at them from across the now empty hallway, a stack of Shannon's papers at his side. Now it was _his_ turn for his mouth to hang open.

Socks jerked his hand away, muttering an apology. It took Shannon a few seconds to process everything before she could apologize back to him. Robot's suddenly emotional reaction caught Shannon off guard. Up to now, she was lead to believe that if he ever did have a crush on her, he was over her by now-the snarky comment solidifying it. But that expression when he saw their hands touch…

She had to talk to somebody about this. And unfortunately, the best person to talk to about this was also sitting on his knees right in front of her. "Actually, Socks, I uh," Shannon started, feeling the guilt of something she couldn't quite pinpoint, "I need to talk to you."

Socks handed her the papers, looking even more confused. "Why? What's going on?"

She leaned in close to him and whispered, with a hand covering her lips so he couldn't see. "After first period, meet me in the hallway by the trophy case. I'll explain."

Socks stood up, watching Shannon finally trash all the old homework sheets in a nearby trashcan, and then carefully try to replace the textbooks and writing tools into the shelf-less locker, shoving the broken shelf to the side. His expression was skeptical. "Okay, whatever. See you at lunch, Robot," he called to his robotic companion with a wave.

Robot didn't reply, but his big eyes followed Socks' calm walk to the other side of the hallway, and around the bend. Then his gaze briefly fell on Shannon before he stood up, inserted the homework into another trash can, and walked away calmly, like a child following an invisible parent.

* * *

 _Originally Published January 5th, 2018_

 _Author's Note for the Story:_

So this is the first chapter in a series that need to be published in a certain order to make sense. This one refers back to "Now You See Me?", but this is the first one where the "story arch" if you can call it that, really gets set in motion.

This is where I begin to speculate (aka, make up) what happened to Shannon, and upcoming chapters will begin to reveal a bit about Robot, the factory, and his creator, Dr. Jones (who sadly I've been neglecting to go back to with more stories because his backstory is pretty complicated.

 _Whatever Happened to Robot Jones?_ © Greg Miller & Cartoon Network


	2. The Man-Code

Shannon tapped her foot under her desk all the way through English class. When the bell finally rang, it felt like the day should have been half over. Socks was waiting for her by the trophy case like she'd asked him to, but he looked really confused. "So, what's up?" he asked, keeping his voice low. Though it wouldn't strike anybody else strange, since Socks and Shannon talked to each other a lot.

"Where's your next class?" Shannon said, eyes darting back and forth.

"Biology. Downstairs," Socks said.

"I'll walk you there," she said, heading for the stairwell before him. Socks hurried after her, creating a space cushion between themselves and the flood of people behind them.

Since they had known each other in elementary school, they'd had hundreds of casual conversations. Socks wasn't used to the idea of Shannon talking to him like a confidant. "What's all the secrecy about?" he said, slowly and uncertain.

"I needed to make sure Robot didn't hear us," Shannon said. "Because… you know…"

"I mean, yeah," Socks said. "Things got kinda weird back there."

"It's been weird for _months_ ," Shannon stressed, looking him in the eyes. "And I don't know what to do about it."

"Months. What are you talking about?"

She stopped, causing some students to swerve around him with narrowed eyes. "Hold on, you mean you're only noticing this _now_?" Shannon asked.

"Noticing _what_?" Socks asked, eyes wide.

"Noticing Robot, I mean, the way he's acting."

"What's different? I mean, yeah, I've never seen him snap at you like-"

"Not just that!" Shannon said, forgetting to whisper. A couple of kids standing at their lockers looked their way, so Shannon dropped her voice again. "You didn't notice how he just stood there when my locker fell apart?"

"I don't know," Socks said, scratching his head, "I just thought he was being shy-I swear, I had no idea there was anything going on."

Shannon didn't know how she had expected to be able to get help without busting out the details, but now it was obviously what she had to do. "Socks, that thing he said was the first time he's even acknowledged me since _April_."

"Whoa," he said with a sigh. "That's one heck of a grudge. What happened? Did you guys have a fight or something?"

She cringed, the memory of that day coming back in fluid detail. "It wasn't a fight, exactly. See, I asked him to sit next to me when nobody else would give him anywhere to sit, and Robot must have assumed that I was only being nice to him because I felt bad."

Socks's eyes darted left and right. "You _assumed_ he thought that, or is that how you actually felt?"

"No! I mean… I don't think I was, entirely," Shannon said as she stared at her hands. She felt like she was defending a person she didn't know. "Oh, I don't know."

"Shannon," Socks interrupted, "Have you thought about just telling Robot you're sorry?"

"Haven't you been listening? Robot doesn't even acknowledge I'm THERE, anymore. How am I supposed to apologize when I'm dead to him?"

"So, what is it you want me to do about this?"

"You could TALK to him," Shannon said, her hair becoming visibly frizier as her stress level increased. "At least he's still talking to you."

"Ah-ah," Socks said, wagging his finger. "This is between you guys-I ain't getting in the middle of it."

"Why not?"

"Because," Socks said, "Because…" He scratched the back of his head. Socks prided himself on his social skills, and to admit that he didn't know how Shannon could approach the situation in a way that didn't directly involve himself would forfeit that pride."T-the Man-Code!"

"The Man-Code?" she repeated.

"Yeah!" Socks said, nodding furiously. "You know, stand up for your buddy, Bros before Does, that stuff."

"Bros. Before. _Does_ ," Shannon repeated dryly. "As in, girl deer?'

Socks gulped, but was saved by the sound of the next period bell. "Sorry, Shannon, I gotta get to my next class!" and zoomed off.

Shannon slapped her cheek. Why had she thought Socks was going to help her with this?

Sighing, she turned around and marched to her next class, which required her to go all the way back upstairs. Maybe if she hadn't been so distracted in English, she would be able to tell the plural of 'doe' as 'does' was even a word...

Somehow, without the anticipation of talking with Socks next passing period, the Shannon found 2nd period class going even slower than usual. It was an art class that Shannon's guidance counselor thought would be good for her, given the record of her interest in art in Elementary school. What they didn't know was that Shannon hated art class in middle school. With so many enthusiastic, talented artists in class, it was suffocating, and part of what caused her to hide her sketchbook under her bed, where nobody would find it. Where nobody would judge it.

This week's assignment was to pick an item in the real world and sculpt it out of multimedia. The current week, the students had been sketching out ideas of what they wanted to create, and out of what material. For the next two weeks after this weekend, they'd be expected to create this thing, and turn it in two Fridays from now.

Some kids had picked industrial things like cars and buildings to sculpt. Others more organic things, like birds and people. And others more fantasy based, such as one kid who was bent on sculpting a full sized figure of an alien he designed out of nothing but clay and paint.

Shannon had sketched and scraped at least ten immediate things that had come to her head since the week had began, and none of them were even remotely interesting to her. She had eventually settled her eyes on the tree right outside the window of the art classroom as something for her to study, and continued shading her tree sketches in the hopes that the teacher wouldn't notice that she still had no idea what she was going to do for this assignment.

While the teacher, who the children knew better as "Ms. Silva" had passed her three times and not asked her anything, today she wouldn't be so lucky. "That's some nice shading," the middle aged teacher said, kindly reaching over to look at the paper. "So, what materials do you think you will be using?

Shannon's heart skipped a beat. Materials. "Uh... um... I haven't really thought of that."

"You know, some of the other students are already beginning collecting materials for their pieces. You seem like you know what you're doing, so why not get started?"

Shannon's eyes fell from the teacher's and were locked on the stupid tree on her desk. Great. Now she was stuck with it. And she hadn't even thought once about what she was going to MAKE it out of. "Um..." she looked up shyly, eyes hunting for the faster kids, who were already grabbing clay and cardboard and pipe cleaner from the supply closet, chattering away carefree as they did so. "I was thinking I'd bring in some stuff from home," she lied.

Ms. Silva continued smiling, but raised her eyebrow inquisitively. "Oh, really?"

Before Shannon was obligated to say further, the industrial lights above them flickered. Ms. Silva frowned and looked up, as half the class did. The teacher took a breath to continue speaking, but it happened again. And less than a second later, they heard a _whoosh_ from the hallways, as all the lights in the classrooms and the connecting hallways shut down.

A brief hush fell over the classroom before the students began whispering to themselves. "Friday the 13th, man," one of the boys across from Shannon whispered to his friends. "It's gotta be."

"Now everybody, calm down," Ms. Silva said. "It's probably just a short circuit. I'm sure Maintenance will get it back up and running in less than ten minutes. In the meantime, please keep your voices down."

While the rest of the students got on the topic of prior Friday the 13th scandals, the kids at her table were speculating dark reasons for the power failure. One boy adjacent to Shannon taking it a bit too far: "What if someone's trying to get in the building and cut the power?"

"And they've got a knife and Madman will be on the PA any second, saying lock the doors," said the rather butch girl next to Shannon, with a sadistic expression.

"Oh, _I don't wanna die_ ," panted the brunette cheerleader, sinking in her chair across from the cyborg girl in legitimate fear. " _I've only ever got to second base..._ "

"Hey, Shay," said the butch girl, nudging Shannon in the shoulder, "Think they'll do a lock-down drill? Shannon?"

But Shannon's mind was way off in the distance. In her head, the dream from this morning came flooding back to her. She should have been able to bury that sound with him, but in the panic of situations like this, and how fresh it sounded-how _real_ it felt when Benji screamed...

 _Benji._

"Shannon?" the butch girl waved her hand in front of Shannon's face. "Hello? Earth to Westerburg?"

"Cyborg girl's gone again," said the boy with folded arms.

"Huh?" Shannon snapped to, hearing the word _cyborg_ unpleasantly thrown her way.

The cheerleader across from Shannon leaned forward on the desk, her worries about a school intruder distracted by her curiosity. "You're interesting, Shannon. You seem so, well, normal, but then you just zone out every now and again." She cupped her chin in her hands. "Where do you go when you're away?"

"Someplace better than this, I bet," muttered the boy.

They were talking as if Shannon was a secret member of a warring alien race who had to occasionally beam herself back to her home planet to fight off the enemy. She blinked a few times and decided, with a few breaths, that she should not react to her offense. They didn't understand. They could never understand. Better to think that she was more normal than she was, and that her fade-out moments were far more innocent than they were...

Suddenly, the PA crackled to life, just as the students had anticipated. A few of the kids high-fived, already knowing what was going to be said. " _Ah-hem. Th-this is Principal Madman speaking. Students, I regret to inform you that we are in the middle of a power outage here at Polyneux-_ "

"You don't say, Madman?" said Ms. Silva to herself rolling her eyes.

" _-and uh, well, our staff efforts to restore power have failed, and we've dialed a repair man to be out soon-_ "

"WOW, DANG, THOSE WIRES ARE HOT!" screamed a heavy country accent voice in the background. "MY FINGEY'S ARE BURNING!"

" _-as well as an ambulance. Well, for Clancy, anyway. But without heat and lights, I'm afraid I have to cancel school for today-_ "

The classroom burst into cheers, and down the hallway, Shannon could hear an echo of further celebration flow through the student body. " _I've called to have the buses come back to the school, and within an hour, everybody should be on their way home. If anybody needs to dial their parents, report to the attendance office to use the telephone. Otherwise, have a-em-safe weekend._ "

At this point, the PA should have clicked off, as the students in the art room ran rampant, gathering their belongings and shouting about the unexpected three-day weekend. But Shannon heard Madman still leaning on the microphone, saying something to the custodian, Clancy Q. Sleepyjeans, something along the lines of " _I told you to put the horseshoe in your pocket, but you didn't believe me_!"

" _Heh, superstitions,_ " Clancy muttered back, audibly angry, before the PA finally 'click'ed off.

Ms. Silva, a good teacher with young heart, took in a moment to smile as her classroom fell to mild chaos. "Alright, everybody, you may start to put away your projects. You can go to your lockers-but not until this place is spick and span. You got that?"

"Yes, Ms. Silva," the class chorused back.

Obeying a teacher like Ms. Silva came easy, because it was obvious that she worked _for_ the students, and not against them. True to her word, the classroom was cleaned, and she opened the door for them to flood out into the halls-the first classroom in the school that was officially "free" for the long weekend.

But as Shannon was about to leave, a hand touched her shoulder. "I hope you make some progress on your project over the weekend, Shannon," Ms. Silva said.

Shannon turned back towards her, her relief of getting away from school suddenly tanked. "Oh, yeah... I'll have it... getting there," she said, twisting one of her fingers in her other hand.

"Do you remember what I said at the beginning of the semester?" the teacher asked. "You're not going to be invested in any project unless you actually care about it. What do you care about that you want to express?"

Shannon saw the knowing look in her eyes and admitted defeat. What did she care about? A lot of things. What of that did she want to express? None of it. "I... don't know. I'll think about it." She sighed, and walked away, leaving the teacher's hand to drop.

But before she rounded the corner, Shannon came to a sharp halt. "Ms. Silva?"

"Yes?" asked the teacher as she locked the door to the classroom.

"Do you think it would be OK if I, um," Shannon rubbed the back of her neck, "Did the project at home-the real project, I mean."

Ms. Silva furrowed her brow in thought. "Hm... well, as long as you continue to work on _something_ in class-"

"The tree!" Shannon exclaimed. "Thanks, Ms. Silva! I'll get something done!" And with that, she took off down the halls.

The teacher shook her head with a grin, stashed her classroom key, and slipped on her coat, as Principal Madman came screeching by, regarded the startled art teacher with a 'humph' and placed a four leaf clover on a cord on the door handle, before rushing off to presumably do the same to every other classroom in school.

When he was out of earshot, Ms. Silva laughed. "Oh, what would we do without our headmaster?"

* * *

 _Originally Published January 6th, 2018_

 _Author's Note from the Story:_

I had trouble writing this chapter only because it's one of those necessary chapters for information leading up to things to happen, and I don't feel like it's TERRIBLY interesting on it's own. But things are going to get intense next chapter onward.

I hope it's not too obvious where I'm heading with the twist...

 _Whatever Happened to Robot Jones?_ © Greg Miller & Cartoon Network _  
_


	3. The Phantom Prankster

Robot jolted as a hand came smashing down on his back. "ROBOT DUDE! TWO AND A HALF DAY WEEKEND!"

The automaton's head whipped around to find Socks Morton practically hopping up and down behind him. "Er... Yes, I heard."

Half the buses were already taking off by the time Robot and and Socks had reached the back of the school. They were paused at the top of the stairs, watching other jacketed kids shout and curse as they cold wind cut at the exposed skin on their hands and faces. Filing out the doors in packs of twos and threes, it might be assumed that most of these kids had decided to ditch the bus and go hang out somewhere unbeknownst to their parents instead of be taken home. It was exactly what Socks had in mind, anyway. "You're not getting on the bus, are you?"

"Why not?" asked Robot.

"Because it's a FREE day!" Socks shouted. "When was the last time we got one of these?"

Robot pondered. "Hm... none recently that I can recall."

"Then come on," Socks said, grabbing his arm and pulling him down the stairs, cutting in front of some peeved-off girls and heading across the parking lot. "Let's find Mitch and Cubey-this is so awesome."

Robot allowed the enthusiastic human to drag him across the lot, finding it hard for his feet to keep up with the spastic human's pull. "But shouldn't we return home to our parents to alert them as to what happened?" Robot asked.

"That's the fun of it, Robot: They don't KNOW we have the day off. We could do anything as long as we're back by 3 o'clock."

Socks dragged Robot around the front of the school, to see Mitch and Cubey sitting on the stairs by the front, along with other groups of kids waiting for their friends. "There you guys are!" Cubey said.

"Weren't we lucky on this supposedly 'luck'-less day?" Mitch asked with a grin.

"You got that right," Socks replied. "Arcade?"

"You know it," Cubey said with a thumbs up.

"You dweebs still go to that dump?" said a voice from behind them. The boys turned and saw a tall, black jacketed kid with curly brown hair leaning against the rail to the main entrance, a lit cigarette in his hands. "Ain't you, like, eighth graders now?"

"Technically speaking, yes," Robot explained. "And uh, I believe there is a rule against lighting a cigarette within 500 yards of a school zone."

"What's it to you, Steve?" Mitch said, arms crossed. All the boys had grown significantly less dazzled by the wiser wonder known as 'Steve the Stall Man', once he was ordered to repeat the eighth grade due to so many class absences. But while Socks and Cubey were still intimidated by the Polyneux legend, Mitch was the only one who had the courage to talk back to him. "It's not like you even got past the first level of _The Mushroom Master_."

Steve flicked his long bangs out of his eyes. "That's because I had better things to do than hang out in a dark, lonely place with nothing but stupid machines for company." Steve turned his head to Robot. "Nothin' personal."

"Oh yeah? Because the first floor bathroom sounds nothing like that," Mitch countered.

"I bet you guys don't even know what a diaphragm is, yet," Steve said.

"You mean those charts they use in math class?" asked Socks.

Robot shook his head somberly, the weight of the unpleasant knowledge on his face. "No, that is a dia _gram_."

"Then what's he talking about?" asked Cubey.

Mitch leaned in and whispered in Cubey's ear. The short boy's face turned from intrigued to disgust in record time as Robot dished out the factual definition. "AH, SICK!"

"Unbelievable," Steve said, half-chuckling. "Well, better make sure you kiddies get home by lunch so your mamas can fix you some milk and apples," he said putting out his cigarette and hopping down from the stairs over the railing, landing on his long legs without a flinch. "See ya 'round."

But Mitch wasn't finished yet. He ran to the edge of the railing and yelled :"And you better make sure not to hang around the school when it's empty, or Andy Fields is gonna mess with _you_!"

At once, the swaggered boy in black halted mid-step, turning to Mitch with a disturbed expression. "What did you say?"

"You heard me!" Mitch shouted.

Steve the Stall Man turned around so that the front of his body faced Mitch, pointing at him with a truly imposing expression Robot didn't even know he was capable of. "Don't. You. DARE. Say that name to me ever again, Freeman, or you're going to regret it."

The repeat 8th grader took off down the school's front lawn at a much less cool pace, leaving the remaining four boys in total silence with the empty school.

"See? What a creep," Mitch muttered to the rest. "I can't believe anybody ever looked up to him."

Socks and Cubey rubbed their arms and exchanged glances, neither one looking sure what to say. Robot felt like the odd man out, having no idea what to make of anything that just happened. "I am confused," Robot proclaimed.

"Yeah," Socks said, sounding awestruck. "Didn't think ol' Steve took that story so seriously."

"What story?" asked Robot. "What's going on?"

Mitch finally turned back to the group. "Nothing, Robot. I shouldn't have even brought it up."

Robot felt his exhaust burn a hot pocket beneath his coat. "Why is it that whenever you guys need information, I can give it to you gladly, but whenever I'm confused, you withhold it? It isn't fair to me that you know more about things because you've been here longer. Tell me, _please_."

Mitch exchanged looks with his two nervous human friends before slapping his forehead. "Alright. Seeing as smoke-boy is no longer the legend keeper of the school," he pointed his thumb to the lawn where Steve had taken off minutes earlier, "I guess I'll have to tell you. Let's head to Nob's..."

The walk to the arcade from school was roughly a half hour, even without post-school traffic. That gave Mitch plenty of time to weave the story to his Robot friend.

"Andy Fields was a kid who they say went to Polyneux in the sixties. I've heard different versions of the story, but I'll tell you the one with the most consistent details," Mitch said. "Now, Andy wasn't exactly a good student. He didn't care about his grades or being good at sports, or even being nice to other students. He was the class clown, and he was proud of it..."

Mitch described a four foot tall, twelve year old boy with chopped black hair that hung below his ears and over his forehead. He dawned ripped, baggy black jeans, a white T-shirt, and his prized possession—a ripped denim jacket. His face was round and small, and most of it, including his eyes, was obscured by a large, neat pair of Lenon sunglasses. A hellish mixture of '50s greaser apparel and '60 hippy accessories.

" _...He was honorary class jester, class prankster..._ "

In a sepia flashback, Mitch described the smirking boy behind dark, circular sunglasses sitting in the back of a grimly silent classroom. After circling her classroom to watch her students and make sure none of them were cheating on her test, the middle aged teacher sat down at her desk, and immediate shot up, grabbing her backside.

"YEOWCH!"

The class looked up from their papers, seeing the teacher rubbing her bubble-shaped backside, and burst into laughter, all except for the sunglasses wearing boy in the far back, who sat with an unchanging smile. The teacher pulled one of her arms back around to find, in her hand, a red tack.

"ANDREW FIELDS!"

The kid wore a smile—not an "I got you!" smile, not a dirty smirk of satisfied revenge, but a genuine grin. He seemed perfectly content, as though there were nothing in the world that could make him more happy then the simple merits of childhood. The tack in the seat was not a spiteful haze, but a well-meaning prank. It was a compliment. It meant the teacher had Andy's respect. The king of school chaos wouldn't waste his time pranking a teacher he didn't like.

" _Kids couldn't figure out half of the time how he did it,_ " Mitch went on. " _They said that he could make nails appear in teacher's chairs with the snap of a finger. Sometimes pranks would be set up on days when Andy was home sick, but they always traced it back to him. And when asked if he did it, he always shrugged with a smile and asked, "how could it have possibly been me?_ "

" _And he never got in trouble?_ " Robot asked.

" _Of course he got in trouble. All the time,"_ Mitch corrected. " _But after a while, most of his pranks were clean that they didn't actually have any evidence that he did it. They only knew it was him by the fact that they didn't have anyone else to blame._ "

Mitch described a scene in which Andy Fields was sat down across from the principal of Polyneux before Madman, a much older looking man with a beard and spectacles, who merely pointed to the detention room.

Back in present day, Robot scratched his head. "So, what does some old prankster boy scare Steve so much?"

Mitch looked up at Socks. "You wanna take the wheel?"

Socks shivered and exhaled out carefully. "His mother didn't have a lot of money, and they lived in an apartment building way over on the bad part of town. He was one of those latch key kids because his mom would work two jobs, and he wouldn't usually see her until late at night. Andy had a bad thing for candy. He couldn't go more than two hours without a stick of gum or something to feed his sugar addiction. He was so into the stuff, they say, that instead of chomping on a toothpick like the other kids, he always had a pixie stick in his mouth..."

" _Well, one Friday, Andy hopped off at the bus stop like normal, and headed down to the corner store for some more pixie sticks and taffy rolls. He payed, and the cashier gave him the goods, then he just went home. They say some kids saw him as he went. He got home and ran up the six flights of narrow stairs up to one of the two tiny apartments on the very top level. The entire floor was always empty on schooldays afternoons except for him._

" _Then that night, Andy's mom got a phone call at work. It was the neighbor in the apartment downstairs saying there had been a fire upstairs, and everybody in the building had been ordered out. Mrs. Fields left and rushed home, thinking that it was probably just small accident, and she would find Andy on the grass outside all safe. But when she arrived, the whole building was up in flames._ "

Mrs. Fields was blocked out of her narrow street by a procession of three fire trucks Hopping out of her car, she saw that the entire top of the building was scorched black. Glass windows along the top were broken from the blast of water from the hoses. It took four hours to put out the fire, and by that time, the building's upper half was nothing but black, and the windows gone.

Back in the present, Robot raise an eyebrow. "Did Andy... perish?"

"Nobody really knows," Mitch explained. "They didn't find him anywhere."

" _What_?" Robot said.

"They said everybody got out," Socks added. "But Andy wasn't there."

"He wasn't there when his mom showed up, or when they put out the fire. When they checked the apartment—nada," added Cubey. "No stiff. No ashes. Nothing. They never saw him again."

"Now they say that whenever something weird happens at Polyneux, it's Andy's ghosts pulling one of his pranks on us," continued Mitch. "And everybody knows his favorite holiday wasn't April Fools day."

"It was..." Socks gulped. "Today."

The friends crossed a street and neared the block where Nob's Arcade sat. But Robot stood frozen after he crossed the street, looking utterly unimpressed. "A ghost? That's what this is about?"

"It's a true story, Robot," Cubey said.

"What crock. Dead pranksters, bad luck, I've had about enough," Robot said, hands in the air. "Even if there _was_ an Andy Fields, he's not haunting the school, and he didn't single out today to do it!"

"How can you be so sure?" Socks asked.

This time, Robot grabbed Socks' arm, pulling him away from the direction of the arcade. "Come on. If there is one thing a machine can do, it's disprove illogical theories."

"Where are we going?" Cubey said, following a dragged Socks.

"To the library. If Andy was real, he'd have an obituary."

"The library!" Socks cried, "On our day off? Robot, you can't be serious!"

But the automaton wasn't listening. His eyes narrow, he dragged his tall, blond friend across the street and away from Nob's Arkaid, Mitch and Cubey following suit.

* * *

 _Originally Published January 7th, 2018_

 _Author's Note for the Story:_

We finally get back to RJ's perspective here. I PROMISE THIS WILL ALL TIE TOGETHER AT THE END, HANG ONTO YOUR NOODLE.

 _Whatever Happened to Robot Jones?_ © Greg Miller & Cartoon Network


	4. Obituaries

The town's public library, shaped like a little red schoolhouse, was pretty small. But as Robot vowed to prove to himself, even small things could prove to be very useful.

When the boys arrived a short time later, the building was surprisingly busy for a weekday-at least so thought the boys who didn't see a reason for these institutions to exist anymore. Not when there were movie theaters, TV shows and arcades to pass the time.

Not wanting to startle little old librarians with frail hearts, Robot nudged Socks up to the information desk first. The woman who sat there was busy, stamping checked-in books from a cart next to her, but she smiled when Socks approached. "Hello, what can I do for you?"

"Um, hi," Socks said, rubbing his elbows. "Do you know where we'd find the, uh, bitch-y things about a kid who died a long time ago?"

The librarian's smile dropped, and she raised her spectacles. "Excuse me?"

Robot came to Socks' aid. "He means, the _obituaries_. We need to do complete research on a fellow student who attended our school a few decades ago."

The librarian took a moment to ponder, then closed the book on her desk and stood up. "From roughly what range period are you looking for?"

"Nineteen sixty seven," Mitch offered.

The librarian rounded to the front of the desk, tightening her red bun as she did. "I know we have newspapers going back to the 1890s, but I'm not sure we'll have the person you're looking for. Come with me, I'll open up the archives."

The boys followed the woman to the left of the floor, leading to a wooden door and a glass-walled conference room. The door to this room was unlocked, and she switched on the lights, revealing a table and four swivel chairs. Straight across that was another door, with only a small, narrow window on the side. This door she opened with a key hanging around her neck, and encouraged the boys down a narrow, white flight of stairs. "We keep all the old newspapers down here to preserve them from sunlight and dirty hands."

As the kids continued on, Socks looked at his hands, and brushed them on his pants before reaching the bottom floor with the rest. The librarian switched on another light, exposing the length of the narrow room, in which there were only two rows, lined with newspapers, magazines, and other print. "All the newspaper titles are organized separately by their own dates, so it may take a while to search for one that says anything about the person you're looking for." She turned and looked at Robot thoughtfully. "You did say this was a child, didn't you?"

"Affirmative."

She frowned. "How sad. But one would imagine that a death so young would be covered by a stand alone article of the Town Chronicle, so you may be in luck."

"Maybe."

In the back of the group, Cubey was nodding off. Mitch jabbed him in the ribs to wake him up. "Sorry!" he hissed in a whisper. "This library stuff is boring."

"You're welcome to stay until close, but do let me know when you leave so I can lock up. Also, you can use the conference room if you need a table, but absolutely no taking home of these materials."

"Yes, ma'am," the boys droned.

"I have a lot of work to do, but let me know if I can help with anything else," she called to them, climbing the stairs rather gracefully on her old fashioned pumps.

"Now what?" Socks asked Robot.

"We start name hunting," the automaton replied.

The boys split up into four corners of the room, each tacking a different newspaper title that would hold anything related to Andy Fields. With no music and no windows to the outside world, time was lost in the archives as the terribly disinterested boys, and Robot, flipped page after page, careful not to create any rips in the yellowed newspapers that they would be liable for.

Eventually, Socks sank into a corner and shoved another newspaper back into its marked spot, much less carefully than when he started. "What time is it?"

Robot shook the daze from his head. "Huh? Oh. 4:30."

"We wasted an entire day READING?" Socks exclaimed.

"And this place closes at five on Fridays," Mitch said. "Saw so on the door heading in."

Cubey set down the magazine in his hands. "I guess we're done then." He peered over at Robot, who was flipping the pages of a newspaper quickly, while a beam of light extruded from his eyes to the print. "What are you doing?"

"I do not have the time to read all of these newspapers here," Robot said. "But I came take the scanned images of the papers home with me to read later."

"Smart," Cubey said with a smile.

"Wait a minute," Socks said. "Does that mean you didn't even NEED us to do this?"

"Of course I did," Robot turned from the page with a smile. "Everything goes faster when you work as a team."

"Whatever," Socks said, rolling his eyes. "Tomorrow: Nob's Arkaid. No 'if's, 'and's, or 'but's about it."

Robot nodded in defeated agreement, and the boys put the archives back together as they found it, letting the librarian know that she could lock up the place now.

"Did you find what you needed?"

"Not yet," Robot said. "But we're still looking."

"What kind of project is this for, anyway?" she asked curiously.

"Uh, um, town history?" Socks shrugged.

"Interesting. Well, I'm sure the child you are writing about would be honored," she said, almost as awkwardly as Socks. "What was the name again?"

"Andy Fields," Robot repeated. "You wouldn't happen to know anything, would you?"

The librarian scratched her head. "Hm... Andy Fields... why does that sound strangely familiar?"

"You _do_ know something?" Robot said, excitedly.

The middle aged librarian shook her head. "Unfortunately, it might have only been a name I heard in passing. I only moved here from Pennsylvania about ten years ago, so this event would have taken place before I was even here."

"And you've never heard a story of a student named Andy who disappeared after a fire?" asked Mitch.

"Never," she said with wide eyes. "That's horrifying. And you'd think it would make front page news." She stood from her desk and sighed. "If you boys excuse me, I've got to let the rest of our patrons know that we're closing soon."

Coming back from a quick break to the bathroom, Socks folded his arms at Robot. "You'd think if he went to Polyneux, that they're be some sort of memorial for him, or at least he'd be in the records."

Robot blinked in awe. "The records! That-that's absolutely right. Socks, that's brilliant!"

The blond boy smirked. "I'm not as stupid as everybody thinks I am."

"Ya got something stuck to your shoe there, genius," Mitch snickered.

Horrified, Socks looked down at his left foot, and saw a trail of toilet paper following him all the way from the men's bathroom around the corner. A couple of ten year old girls with chapter books in their hands saw the trail and pointed and giggled at the poor boy.

Socks kicked his shoe wildly until the piece that was stuck to the sole of his shoe fell off, and by that time, his face was bright red. "Does every smart moment I have have to be negated by stuff like this."

" _Negated_?" Cubey asked. "That's a big word for you, Socks."

"Oh, shut up!" Socks yelled back. It was at this moment that Socks notice Robot veer off into the nonfiction shelves. "Hey, Robot, where are you going?"

"I want to check one more thing before we leave," he said, disappearing behind a bookcase far down the hall.

The shelves up on the first floor were much taller and wider than the ones holding the newspapers downstairs. Robot even considered hyper-extending his neck in order to read some of the titles on the higher shelves. He wondered if he could just be lucky enough to find a book on famous mysteries and myths that had some grounding to real events. Unfortunately, based on everything he was seeing, anything beyond Bloody Mary and similar century-old folklore was not going to be covered by a book in this small, little library. Especially such a recent, local story.

Robot was about to give up and head back to the guys when he caught a similar voice talking to the librarian. Robot pushed aside some books from the shelf at his eye level, and peered through the gap.

The librarian was leaning over a table in the study nook, where a familiar teen sat with a book opened at the table in front of her.

 _Shannon_

"I just pulled it out like this, I swear," Shannon pleaded with the woman, distress on her face.

"What on earth-?" the librarian said, looking over her shoulder at the book, and raising her glasses again.

 _What is she doing here?_ Robot wondered.

"It's been a long time since I've seen something like that," the woman said to Shannon. "How peculiar."

"Can I still check it out?" Shannon asked.

"I, um, sure," the librarian said, replacing her glasses. "Just let me make a note of it so that you won't be fined for the damage."

"Thank you," Shannon said, watching her leave. As Robot watched, Shannon packed up the stack of books on the table, including the apparently damaged one that Shannon had brought to the attention of the librarian. For whatever reason, his eyes were locked onto the title of the book as she shut the cover, and felt the oil in his tank bubble: _Jolly Roger's Complete and Total History of Robotics._

* * *

 _Originally Published January 8th, 2018_

 _Author's Note from the Story:_

Wrote this out this morning really quick before going to the store. I stopped proofreading these a while back so forgive the errors, I will go back and fix them as I go along. Now (hopefully) stuff gets interesting.

 _Whatever Happened to Robot Jones?_ © Greg Miller & Cartoon Network


	5. Between the Lines

Outside the library, the October sunset was already setting, and it was getting even colder out.

"I'm starving," Cubey said as he pushed open the doors.

"Me too. I guess we'll call it a night," Mitch said. "Andy's ghost is going to have to screw with somebody else tonight, because I do not have the patience for him on an empty stomach."

"The fact that we did not find anything only further suggests the idea that he never existed to begin with," Robot declared. "I think we should be considering the possibility that it has been a silly myth all along."

"Maybe you're right," Socks agreed. "But he's sure real to a lot of people."

The boys split up into twos, with Socks and Robot heading off to their own direction, and Cubey and Mitch getting home faster if they took the opposite way. Nearing Socks' block sooner, Robot's paranoid best friend felt like he needed a confirmation that his smart moment at the library wasn't his imagination before they separated. "So, how do you figure you're going to get to Andy's files at the school?"

"I don't know yet," Robot admitted. "It depends if they moved them to the computer or if they're still sitting on a shelf somewhere. At least if it was the former, I could hack into one of the computers at the school and get into the staff database."

"You can do that?" Socks said, stopping in amazement.

"I _am_ a computer, Socks." Robot said. "A bi-pedal computer, but so be it."

Socks narrowed an eyebrow. It was weird that Robot had to emphasize that, as if Socks of all the kids didn't realize what he was. "Whatever, I just didn't know you could do stuff like that."

"I can do a lot," Robot said, folding his arms.

Socks gave him a confused look. "Why are you talking like that?"

Robot found he couldn't help it. Truthfully, the mysterious Andy Fields was battling for space in Robot's thoughts. Ever since watching Shannon leave the library, she was all he wanted to think about. What was she doing there? Why was she interested in a book on robotics? Was it condescending to think that it had something to do with himself? Why, after so many months of being numb to her presence, did any of this suddenly matter to him?

For whatever reason, to make it worse, his video memory kept playing back the a clip of that morning, when Socks' hand landed on hers. He, who had swooped in first to help her with the mess. He, who chuckled with her in the halls about how tall they both were. He, who-

"Robot, are you there?"

Robot shook his head, and returned proper eye contact to his friend. "I am sorry. I think I am just drained."

"Me too," Socks said, rubbing the back of his neck. They were in front of Socks' house now, and both boys were secretly glad to be able to say goodbye for the night. "I'll see you at Nob's tomorrow?"

"Affirmative," Robot said, but now it was his turn to look confused. "Won't we walk together as always?"

"Uh, I don't know exactly when I'll be there," Socks said, hoping Robot wouldn't catch onto the uncertainty in his voice. "I forgot that my dad wants me to help clean out the garage in the morning. So, tell Mitch and Cubey I'll be running a little late, OK?"

"Certainly," Robot said, but his computer voice did not emote certainty for once. "I hope that task runs smoothly for you," he said as he began walking away.

Socks went to open the door, but the knob turned from the inside and was yanked open in front of him. "Timothy Morton, where in the blazes have you been?" demanded his mother, still wearing her work suit. "The school left a message on our answering machine and said the power went off!"

"Ah, cripes!" Socks winced.

Robot winced in sympathy of his friend. So Madman HAD called the parents. In situations like this, Robot didn't hesitate to step in and defend his friend from the onslaught of condemning words from their parents, or teachers. Robot had learned quickly not to let adults intimidate him any more than other children did. And technically, it was Robot's most appropriate time to do so, because it was HIS fault the boys got home so late.

So, why did he almost feel like he wanted to let Socks deal with it?

He swallowed a ball of hardened oil residue that had formed in his throat, and turned around. "It isn't his fault, Mrs. Morton! Socks and I had a project at school we needed to finish, and the public library was the only available resource after the power outage."

"It's true," Socks said, eternally grateful Robot was able to quickly compose responses adults. "Call Mrs. Ginny at the desk if you need to believe it."

"I think I'll just do," Mrs. Morton said, her voice softer. "And you'll be lucky if you're going out tomorrow. Now, into the house! Your father made dinner and its getting cold."

Socks obeyed without another word. By the time the door closed, Robot was already five houses ahead, and finding himself picking up pace as he headed back to his own house. The more distance he could put between himself and that human that he thought was his best friend, the easier it was to stop thinking of him.

Back at his house that evening, Robot camped out in his room, opening up the files in his memory banks that contained the scanned images of the old newspapers. He had managed to store 97 issues of the Town Chronicle from 1967 to 1982, and by 9 P.M., he'd already read a third of them, cover to cover. Never once in this time did his eyes come across the name "Andy Field," although he was learning a lot about gardening trends from two decades ago, and how they used to advertise automobiles in the margins.

He found his eyes growing so heavy that his image of the newspaper, projected onto the wall via his eyes, was disappearing from the top as his eyelids were beginning to close. His head was propped up onto the desk that he'd added to his room once he received homework at school that he could not complete at a moment's notice. Mostly English and History papers, of which it helped to write out drafts on paper before printing out a final copy.

Every time he found himself getting too bored with the task to continue, he reminded himself he was using this to distract himself from his more personal problems.

Just as he was seriously considering calling it quits on the research for the night, three precisely timed raps sounded on the outside of at his door.

"I hope you do not conclude that I am 'sneaking up on you' again," Mrs. Jones said as the metallic door to Robots' room came flying up and into the ceiling trap. "As my memory banks did alert me to knock this time."

Robot took the hot can of oil from her hands gratefully. "You did remember," he said with a smile. "But, I believe you are supposed to also question me as to whether or not you may come in at this time."

"Do not attempt to 'push it,' Robot Jones," his mother said, feeling proud of her new usage of human slang. As it was, Robot was just happy that Mom and Dad Units had agreed to attempt to give Robot the same kind of boundaries that most human parents gave their own teenagers-or were supposed to, anyway. Before attending Polyneux, Robot never realized how liberated he could feel in his own house. It was one of the upsides to letting himself be immersed in human culture. Mom Unit cocked her head at the image of the scanned newspaper, projected from Robot's eyes onto the wall. "I hope you are making progress on this project, for all the work you are putting into it."

Robot shook his head, and the image on the white steel wall shook with it. "Negative. And if I don't find anything here, the next step is to take it to school, and I am feeling rather reluctant to do that." By that, meaning the fact that he was probably going to have to break into some confidential files. "You didn't find anything in our databases, did you?"

"I'm afraid I did not. But don't worry. I'm sure your teachers would be glad to help you," Mom Unit said, putting her pumps on his shoulders.

Robot winced. "This isn't a school project. I'm only trying to find evidence that this student didn't disappear in a fire, so I can disprove the myth that he's haunting the school." He turned his right ear like the dial on an old slide so that the zoomed in image of the newspaper on the wall scrolled down to the bottom of the page. "This silly paranoia has got the humans acting more irrational than usual."

"Haunting? Oh, humans," Mom unit commented. "They never cease to intrigue me."

Robot felt the heat of the lights behind his eyes grow particularly hot, and turned off the projection function off, and the newspaper article on the wall disappeared. "Even if I find that Andy Fields _was_ real, how am I going to prove that he's not a ghost? Maybe this whole thing's all for naught."

Robot didn't really know when he became to set on accomplishing what he set out to do. He was so determined not to let this particular story pass without proving he was right. But why? What did it even matter to him?

Maybe it was because he was beginning to feel like he himself was growing irrelevant. When he first started Polyneux, the kids treated him like a freak, but at least he had cool tricks and talents to keep him feeling hopeful. But once he ran out of things to dazzle the kids with, and Shannon proved that any affection for him were nothing stronger than pity, Robot was running out of reasons to keep himself in the rat race that was middle school. Sure, there was Mitch, Cubey and Socks to entertain him and make him feel included somewhere, but there was a nagging feeling of doubt behind that, too. How long would they be loyal to him once they got tired of him?

In the time it took Robot to think of all this, Mom Unit had come up with an idea. "You're skimming the pages for the name 'Andy Fields,' but have you ever considered the idea that that was not actually his name?"

"What do you mean?"

"I was once asked to assist in the research of an invention by a European robotic scientist by the name of 'Scott Karls,' whom everybody assumed was from the United Kingdom. But the remaining evidence of his origins suggested that this human was not from the United Kingdom at all, but from Sweden. And I wondered if somehow his name had been remembered incorrectly. So I looked for robotic scientists in Sweden under any name. Low and behold, there was an immediate case match: His real name was Erik Karls _son_."

Robot spun around in his chair. "That really happened?"

"It did, indeed," Mrs. Jones told him. "And I can't help but feel as though this mythical Andy Fields had a slightly different name when he walked the halls of your school."

"That makes so much sense. Thanks Mom Unit!" Robot said, sipping his oil, and then flipping back on the projector. The newspaper image inside his head had jumped to the advertisement page, where an illustrated image of a woman clad in nothing but a traffic-cone bra and satin skirt advertised an _'Attention-grabbing boost that never fails_!'

"Oh dear," Mrs. Jones said, shaking her head. "I'll never understand a human's concept of fashion. Thankfully this contraption is as terribly outdated as my support motors."

Robot turned his head with a smirk. "Tell that to the woman who appears on the MTV channel all the time."

"Don't remind me, Robot Jones. I am already this close to cutting down the television antenna for letting you view those adult images."

With that, Mrs. Jones wheeled to the door and told her grinning son 'Goodnight,' before hitting the button on the side panel and sending the door back down to the floor. Robot sighed and kicked his feet up so that they were folded over the edge of his desk, feeling much better than he had a while ago. While before he was ready to put himself into sleep mode for the night, he got a second wind at the suggestion that he shouldn't he focusing on the name.

He ordered his memory to extract the front page of another newspaper, and he began the process of skimming sub-titles again. Immediately, the last paper was replaced by the next one that he had scanned, this one having a front page article that made Robot almost jump out of his seat.

 **South Side Apartment Complex Destroyed by Fire: Fireman Rescues 82 Year Old Man**

It didn't follow the exact details Socks had given about where Andy lived, but it was the best Robot had found all day. Eagerly, he dove into the article.

 ** _2 November 1967… At one thirty in the morning, firefighting station 107 received a call to a four story apartment building on the south side, in which one unit was occupied by a working forty year old woman and her grandfather of 82. While working the night shift, Henrietta Sand was notified that a fire had erupted in an apartment on her floor, where her weary grandfather had been alone, sleeping..._**

 _ **…**_ _ **Fortunately, 36 year old Jim Gins was on duty...**_

 _ **…**_ _ **valiantly broke into the room and rescued the frail, older gentleman from his bedroom, leading him ...**_

 ** _...Police say the cause of the fire is unclear as of now, but are suspicious of a faulty wiring system in the walls of the old complex...  
_** **  
**Robot felt all his hope seep out of his joints in steam clouds. The date and the place added up, but even if the building happened to be Andy's, it said nothing about a boy's remains being found, or even about a child missing at all. Surely, if a twelve year old boy living in that building could not be located by his mother arriving home, he would have been the main subject of the article? Not some old man who had been saved.

Frustrated, Robot shook his head furiously, which accidentally caused his internal projector to skip to one of the last newspapers in his memory banks. When he opened his eyes again, he couldn't believe what he was seeing.

 **ROBOT SUSPECTED FOR INVOLVEMENT IN DEATH OF CHILD**

"No..." Robot sank into his chair. "It's never... we've never... this has to be a mistake."

He knew he should close the page. He didn't want to know. But he had to. Feeling like he was going to sick-up the oil he'd just chugged down, he turned his ear to page down to the paragraphs.

 ** _... Dover detective Jonathan Rooter was called into Allentown to investigate the death of a five year old boy on Tuesday. "Some people would never think something like this would happen,_** **_in a nice little town like this," Rooter told this Chronicle reporter. "But that's where they're wrong. It was bound to happen-and it started with letting this little city be the guinea pig to a corporation's little test subject."  
The entire county was in shock at the death of the first grader, who's name has been withheld as the investigation continues. While police initially did not release a cause to the child's death to the public, many locals have vocalized suspicion of the town's robotic cleaning machine, simply titled "The Cleaner" by creators X-Corp, for the death. "Had regular garbage man been in charge of taking care of this city's garbage, that child would still be alive today."  
When this reporter _**_**asked Detective Rooter what evidence he had to prove that the automaton was to blame for the death, he said simply: "The child was outside after curfew, but he was**_ **not** ** _on the path that the robot was ordered to take when doing its nightly rounds. You don't think it sounds as if the robot veered off course on purpose?"  
The complex cleaning automaton has been a beloved addition to the city of Allentown by many, but has also been a controversial invention, being responsible for the loss of quite a few jobs in the city for sanitation workers in the past two years. "It may be _**_**speculated that some of this aggression has been targeted to the robot unfairly," said X-Corp representative, Jay Horn.**_  
 _ **When reached out for comment, Horn denied any fault on the part of the robot. However, prior to this article's publication, X-Corp has ordered an immediate stop to The Cleaner's operation, and has since collected the huge automaton and placed it into storage for an undisclosed amount of time, presumably where it can rest until the storm of the incident has blown over. Until then, the city has welcomed back its human sanitation workers...**_

Robot was unmovable. Everything in his body locked up and refused the information in front of his eyes. All the stupid accusations he had ever heard that his kind was dangerous for humanity had been completely unfounded. But here he was, staring at a glaring story that robots were responsible for the death of a human-a child, no less. He was so conflicted. Should he feel outraged that a robot could be blamed for such a terrible thing, when it was most likely, like all times, some sort of unseen human error? Or should he be wrapped with guilt, after believing with every inch of his heart that humans only saw robots as dangerous because they were different?

More importantly, why had he never heard of this incident before?

* * *

 _Originally Published January 9th, 2018_

 _Author's Note from the Story:_

OKAY  
I really wanted to make this the longest chapter by adding the last real Shannon-focused passage of this, I guess, "episode," but I am having such writer's block on her part, so I just cut it off here and so be it. I'm considering changing the title of this so that it is more inclusive of the larger story arch that is going to take place, but for the life of me, I cannot think of what to call it.

 _Whatever Happened to Robot Jones?_ © Greg Miller & Cartoon Network


	6. Anniversary

At the same time Robot was transfixed by the unexpected robot article in the paper, at the Westerburg house, Shannon was livid with her own research failure. "I can't believe it! The little snot who borrowed this last ripped out the pages that I _need_!"

She threw the book onto the floor of her room, not caring if it got lost between the piles of trash and clothes and dirty sheets. The other books that she had checked out from the library that afternoon had tons of information-none of which was relevant to her at all. Titles like _Great Inventions of the 20th Century_ were at least close, but touched very little on robotics. So when she checked the contents of _The Complete and Total History of Robotics_ book and found that they, indeed, had an entire section dedicated to _JNZ_ , the American company that had shot up seemingly from nowhere in the middle of the Vietnam War, of course, the pages that had been ripped out by a previous borrower had been that entire section. The only remaining page left in the _JNZ_ chapter was a dabble on the backstory of _JNZ_ 's creator, and even that was more speculative, as if the writer had little factual information about the man to cite at all.

Even if the pages had been left, Shannon realized, she might still not find a photo or a diagram of what she was looking for. Of _who_ she was looking for. He was a recent invention of JNZ, wasn't he? And who was to say that her classmate was even important enough to them be conveniently covered in a book at the library?

She looked at the work space she'd cleared for herself on her desk, standing in the middle of the room. She hadn't been completely lying to the art teacher when explaining that she had materials at home to work with, but it mostly consisted of duck tape, pipe cleaner, felt cloth and old food container lids. How she was supposed to build a good sculpture out of just this was anybody's guess. All she'd done so far was build a frame for the feet by ripping the fuzzy parts off of the pipe cleaner off and bending them until they looked about as proportionate as they did in her head. The problem was that she was hoping to not be relying on solely her memory to do this.

This was gonna suck.

She rubbed her eyes and looked behind a pile of clothes to the clock on her nightstand-almost 10pm. She was tired, and a pinching nerve pain shooting from the back of her head was warning of an incoming caffeine withdrawal headache. Carefully, she closed the sketchbook where she'd earlier drawn the most basic plans for her sculpture-as bare bones as the materials she had to work with-and pushed it back under her bed, where even her parents couldn't see it.

She didn't think her mother was awake anymore, anyway. Her grandfather was out late with friends, and if expectation's prevailed, was probably not going to be back until the morning. Neither Shannon nor her mother tended to worry about him, though, since he was in good hands. That left Mrs. Westerburg with a day's worth of exhaustion from being both the bread winner, and the house's only cleaner, and caused her to turn in at a reasonable hour.

Being considerate of her sleep, Shannon tiptoed as quietly as possible past her door, which was especially hard, given one leg was stiff metal and that much harder to control. Thankfully the stairs and most of the 2nd floor was covered in a noise-absorbing, plush brown carpet, with carried her soundlessly down to the kitchen for a drink. Shannon was the only kid she knew who could sleep after a full can of soda. She had felt like she was growing a tolerance to caffeine's effect for a while now, but wondered if it was contributing to her paranoia, both awake and in her dreams.

Open can in hand, the skinny teenager slipped up the stairs, two by two, the floorboards making only the tiniest of squeaks under her feet. On her way back to her room, somehow only now did she notice the light to her mother's room was still on.

Shannon paused curiously. She couldn't be sleeping with the light on, right? She took a step closer, wondering if her mother was alright. What could she possibly be doing up at this hour? Darning a sock? Reading one of those paperback novels she likes so much? Going over household expenses?

As soon as Shannon considered letting it go, the door handle turned, the little sliver of yellow light growing as it slid into the hallway and onto the opposite wall. Out stepped Mrs. Westerburg, curlers in hair, pajamas and slippers on, dabbing the sleeve of her robe against her eyes. "Oh! Sweetheart. I didn't know you were still up."

Whereas it took her a moment to realize her daughter was there. Shannon noticed almost immediately that something in her mother's voice was off, and so was her body language. And not in the usual tired way. She asked a question she never thought she'd have to ask her mother. "Is everything OK?"

"Yes... yes, honey, everything's fine," Mrs. Westerburg, or Marlene, told her, the front of her body cast in a shadow that just barely concealed her expression. But as she moved closer, she saw that her mother's eye makeup was still on-she _never_ slept with it on. She was particular about that, as wearing makeup to sleep, she nagged Shannon for the future, was a quick and easy way to obtain wrinkles. Not only was her mascara still present, but it was smudged far up onto the top of the lid, and down onto her cheeks. "I was just going to get some medicine."

"Are you sick?" It made enough sense. It was that time of year-flu season. But even as she said it, Shannon knew that that wasn't what the problem was.

But her mother didn't answer her. She slid past Shannon to the second floor bathroom without another acknowledgement, wheres she pushed open the door, shuffled things around in the cabinet in the dark until she found what she was looking for: a bottle of thick cough syrup, and took a swig right out of the bottle.

There was so much wrong here, Shannon didn't even know where to begin. For starters, her mother never drank out of the medicine bottle. She used to get on Shannon's case about doing such things. "Mom, what's wrong?" Shannon pleaded. Again, her mother didn't reply as she slipped back into her room. and sat down on the bed-and when Shannon followed her, saw the comforter still turned down with military precision. She hadn't even tried to sleep yet.

Something was so alien about this picture. There were three matching dressers against the walls, with a queen bed's headboard touching the last one, the same wall as the door. Her mother returned a spot on the bed by the pillows, presumably where she'd been for the past few hours. There were photo albums scattered all over the bed, a short bucket where they had been stashed under her bed pulled out, forcing Shannon to dance around it, as well as the tossed-aside lid.

The teenager's eyes immediately found that of her five year old self, in a photo taken with a bright green bike, right after she'd learned to ride it. She looked so different then. Shorter, but not necessarily so much smaller, in a way that made her limbs seem the perfect length. She hadn't seen a picture of herself that young in years, and felt a little envious of the girl in the picture. It astonished her to think that she used to think of herself as ugly _then._ With no braces, no blackheads, no prosthetic. So oblivious as to what a future mirror was going to have in store for her.

Even her smile back then seemed effortless.

There were tons of other pictures. Shannon and her mother outside a craft store with a latch-hook rug kit in hand. Her mother laughing on the beach with her dad holding her waist. A family picnic when Shannon was six, and just lost her baby two front teeth. The Shannon in the photograph was waving a tuna sandwich and wearing overalls and another smile, this one with a gap in the front-again, if only she knew what was coming for her, she wouldn't have wished the baby-buck teeth away so quickly.

But her eyes couldn't avoid the inevitable-in between all the photos of the family before his existence were pictures of a gorgeous little boy with powder blue eyes the color of his father's.

 _Benji._

The little boy wasn't just photographed with the family. There were so many pictures of him with nothing to distract from his captivating looks-class photos, birthday pictures, etc. The Westerburg's even used him as the image of their holiday greetings card the year that he was born. Who wouldn't? He was so photogenic!

And in the middle of this minefield of memories was her mother, looking so much older so suddenly-head hanging low, and for the first time Shannon could see age lines forming on her forehead. She wasn't crying anymore, but the signs that she had been doing so before opening the door were written all over. To top it off, a curler dangled loose down at her neck.

Shannon felt like such a fool. Of course, _of course, of course._ Tomorrow was the day. Tomorrow, the day she was bent on distracting herself from. Tomorrow, the day where everything had changed. When the glass window that had protected their ordinary little American family from the cruelty of the world shattered. For years, Shannon hadn't seen so much as a tear from her mother's eyes after the initial grief had passed. She was only old enough now to see that that grief was still plaguing her as much as it was plaguing herself.

She didn't have words.

Marlene Westerburg slowly raised her head, pulling the loose curler out of her hair, and letting the freed lock hang by her neck. She found Shannon's eyes, trying her best to smile. "When was the last time I brushed your hair, Shannon?"

The question threw the teen through a loop. "Brushed my hair?" The answer to that question was well over six years. Her mother sometimes brushed her hair for her when she was much younger while trying to style it, but Shannon grew tired of her mother doing everything for her, and from then on insisted that she was a big girl and could handle the knots herself. Her mother shortly gave up on babying Shannon that way once Benji was born, and his hair was so much softer and easier to brush, anyway, (or so Shannon had overheard from the family's hair cutter, anyway).

For the next half hour or so, she had Shannon sitting on the edge of the bed, photo albums shoved out of the way, as she ran a rounded brush through her hair, carefully dodging wires of her dental apparatus. Neither of them spoke at first, and in Shannon's case, anyway, she didn't know what she could say. She felt like a child coming across a magician's velvet hat and finding the pocket where he stashed the white rabbit. Whereas the child was once mad that they couldn't explain the trick, now they were disappointed that they knew exactly how he did it. Whereas Shannon was once mad at her mother for having moved past their family's trauma with astonishing resilience, she was now mad at herself for realizing that it had all been a ruse. Well, not maybe _all_ of it, as Shannon knew that like herself, her mother wasn't _constantly_ grieving anymore, but to make it seem as if she wasn't vulnerable to the emotional aspect of the memories anymore...

What a talented actress her mother had been, Shannon thought. _She never broke character once in three years..._

"I'm sorry, honey," she said suddenly, working on a tangle at the end of Shannon's hair. "That you saw me like this."

When she'd set down her pop can, Shannon took notice of a wine glass on her mother's nightstand with a red bottle next to it, which explained the slightly off behavior. She wasn't quite drunk, but Shannon could feel the affects of the alcohol in the slowness of her brushing. Was she apologizing for letting Shannon see her during an emotional breakdown, or apologizing for letting her see her not completely sober? Yet her hands were still so careful, the brush never catching hard on a tangle, that Shannon soon found it incredibly relaxing. Even with caffeine in her blood, she found herself almost nodding off.

It _was_ still strange to see her tipsy, though. Shannon had a few friends who's mother's drank every weekend, but her own mother had an awful tolerance for anything alcohol related, which contributed to how rarely she drank. One glass must have been more than enough of the numbing agent she was looking for. The cough syrup, then, was an extra measure to force her to sleep. How naughty of her, Shannon mused, _and dangerous._ Most of the 8th graders had been given the rundown on improper use of household drugs in P.E., and Shannon understood that mixing any kind of alcohol and medicine was risky.

"Why are you sorry?" Shannon asked. "You can't help it. It's not exactly possible to stop being sad." She said this with a catch at the end of her voice, wondering why it wasn't obvious to her all along. It _isn't_ possible to just refuse sadness. No matter how hard you try. It wasn't human. So why did she think her own mother could do it?

"Maybe not altogether," Shannon's mother replied. "But for most of the time, I try to choose to be happy. I've still got so much to be thankful for. You. And your Grandfather. And our home."

Mrs. Westerburg put down the brush, and went to her dresser, picking up a hand-held mirror. In a move that made her daughter cringe, she turned the mirror away from herself, and towards Shannon instead. The image of herself before she looked away showed a girl with flat hair and weakest natural waves at the bottom, not to mention the unsightly teeth. Her mother noticed the cringe and frowned. "Why do you always do that when you see your reflection?"

"Because... egh," Shannon muttered, keeping her eyes down at her lap. She wasn't the type of girl to constantly complain about her appearance outwardly to each other. Girls who did that were usually looking for reassurance that they didn't look as bad as they thought. But Shannon didn't _think_ her appearance was bad: She _knew_ it was bad. Baiting others for assurance that that wasn't true was only asking for humiliation.

Coming back around to the bed and sitting behind her, Shannon's mother kept holding the mirror in front of Shannon, but with her own face right next to it. "You may not believe me, but you are going to be so beautiful one day, Shannon."

Now, that was a first. _Going_ to be. Not now. That was the kind of candor that she'd never thought she'd hear from a mother to their kid. Especially her own. Come to think of it, her mother never once called her pretty. Not even when she wore that silly dress to the Harvest Dance a few years back. To remark about her looks at all was odd.

Must've been the wine talking.

But the honesty in it was something she could appreciate anyway.

As the mirror slowly tipped downward in her mother's tired hand, Shannon caught a glimpse of another photograph on the bed. This one had both her father and Benji in it, along with her Grandfather-an all male picture.

She didn't know if she wanted to say it or not, but she said it anyway. "I miss them too."

Things returned to quiet before Mrs. Westerburg hugged her daughter, tightly. Yep. That was the wine.

"Are you going out with Pam again tomorrow?"

"Not that I know of," Shannon said. "Why?"

"I don't know," she said, putting the mirror on the bed. "I just thought you and your Grandfather and I could go somewhere, as a family."

Shannon remembered the picnic, the beach, the carnival, the places they used to go to, a long time go. Back before things became too serious. Of course they'd stopped doing those things for a while after _it_ happened, but come to think of it, the Westerburg's never really did anything fun after that. Not together, with who remained. Maybe because of all the added expenses, and Shannon's mother having to pay for everything out of her one income. Or maybe it was because it would feel treacherous to the family in the photos.

Shannon still got to go fun places at friend's parties, but not with her own family. As she got older, she grew a desire to spend more time away from her parents, as most kids did. So it didn't surprise her as to why it took so long for her to realize these fun family outings had stopped. But now she couldn't believe how badly she missed them. Young Shannon in the photographs, with a mother, father, brother, and two uninjured legs, had no idea how fortunate she was.

"Yeah..." she said. A weird sensation broke out across her face that she hadn't felt so long, that she knew it had to be a smile. "I wouldn't mind that," Shannon admitted. "Are uh, you going to be OK tomorrow?"

Shannon's mother smiled back. "Oh, I'll be sober by tomorrow, if that's what you're thinking." She stood up and reached for the wine on the nightstand, capping it and taking it and the glass in her hands, to put back in the cabinet. "Your grandfather on the other hand, who knows? Tell you what: I'll go to bed now, and you should probably get some yourself, if you plan on getting up before noon."

Shannon stood up, again weaving her way through the maze of albums and the bucket that they came from, and left the room. The 'Goodnight' was implied.

Back in her room, Shannon shed her sweater in favor of a large T-shirt, keeping the shorts on, and fell backwards onto the bed. The unfinished sculpture on her desk nagged at her a bit, but she found it easier to push out of her mind, now that she wasn't trying to block something else out so intensely.

Tomorrow was October 14th again, and nothing she could do was going to change that. So, better to change something she actually had control of: Her attitude. Maybe she couldn't stop herself from feeling sad, but maybe she wasn't supposed to. Maybe she could just figure out how to handle it better. Maybe she could do it for her mother.

After all, nobody outside the family knew.

Tomorrow was going to be a perfect day. She was going to _make_ it that way.

* * *

End of Part 1.

* * *

 _Originally Published January 11th, 2018_

 _Author's Note for the Story:_

The title on this is going to be changed as soon as I know what the hell to call this story arc.

I could probably prof-read this one more time before I submit it but I'm tired so I'll do it laterrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

 _Whatever Happened to Robot Jones?_ © Greg Miller & Cartoon Network


	7. Confrontation in the Bathroom

**Part 2: Changes**

 **Prologue: The Reaper  
**

* * *

Humans. So inconsiderate. So cruel.

Even the ones who pledge their entire lives to the benefit of humanity prove to be cruel in the most unexpected ways. Church pastors who inspire hope in the lives of the struggling, pocketing the money from the collection trays. Doctors, who take the oath to heal the sick, and then prescribe unneeded medicines and surgeries.

Children, who return home to wash dishes for their mothers after having helped gang up on the new kid and drive them to their own home in tears. Not stereotypical and well-recognized bullies, but bullies nevertheless.

And even the Johnsons. An ordinary, middle class family that has both mother, father, and three teenage children putting in volunteer hours at the Allentown shelter, a place that had expanded since the mid seventies as many factories in town closed all at once. Although they lived in the failing city, Mr. and Mrs. Johnson had work just outside of town, and were fortunate enough to keep their jobs, and so they decided to pay it forward.

As good citizens, the Johnsons kept a tidy house, and kept up with recycling. But they weren't alone in the task. One of the reasons they were able to put in so much time at the volunteer shelter was that they had a helper at home. A tiny little robot, only two feet tall, with extendable arms, a blue shell exterior, and a single eye, an ordinary housekeeping model, had been serving the Johnsons for years. Mr. Johnson had bought it from a fellow employee at the office for a good deal, and the robot paid for itself in manual labor by the end of six months. As kids, the Johnson's children were excited to see a self-operating robot take out the trash and do some of the small chores that they themselves had once been expected to do. They found it amusing to adorn the little robot with a tie, and around Christmastime, a rope of tinsel and bows. The robot only replied to the tiny acts of love with generic, happy comments that society had come to expect from Type A robots. However, unknown to the Johnsons, the robot was _not_ a Type A robot-and it was not an it, but very much a _he,_ and therefore had the capacity to respond negatively if he wanted to. It just happened that the robot was genuinely content with his lot in life.

But by the time they reached middle school, the Johnson children were too absorbed in keeping up grades and their social lives to notice the robot that made their beds and vacuumed the floor was even there. They were good kids, helping their parents out at the shelter on the weekends, but they just didn't care about the robot anymore. The girl, who had made it a habit of thanking the robot for picking up her room, didn't even acknowledge him anymore-as if her added height made her blind to the still toddler-height robot.

Yet this same robot continued with its chores, not bothered. It was serving the same kids who had shown it real affection in its early years with them, and that was more than some robots ever got. While they stopped caring about him, he cared very much for them. He served them not just because he was told to, but because he genuinely wanted to.

But he was an old robot. It was second-hand to the Johnsons, and it came as no surprise when the robot eventually had a harder time completing his tasks. He dropped a bag of trash all over the floor he'd just cleaned. he left oil spots on the carpet from a leaking tank. One day, the girl came home from seeing her friends and saw that her bed wasn't made. The robot hadn't been able to finish half of his tasks that day.

Mr. Johnson told his wife that he had gotten a good deal out of the robot, anyway-many years of service for such a small price. The robot wasn't supposed to understand, or care. But he did-he was a Type B, made by the _JNZ_ corporation a few towns over. He had a gender. He had feelings. He _wanted_ to keep serving.

Rather than send him back to the factory to be repaired at an astronomical price, the Johnsons decided they had gotten their money's worth out of the robot, and on the day that he, the now-unable to communicate robot was so broken that he could no longer wheel himself forward, Mrs. Johnson set the robot on the curb, next to the recyclables. As part of county ordinance, a domestic robot was the equivalent of a household appliance, and therefore was expected to be disposed of in the same way as a broken TV set, or an old vacuum that had lost its suction. Mrs. Johnson lifted the surprisingly light little robot to the curb by herself, setting him down on his side because he had lost a back wheel a few weeks ago, and could no longer sit upright. Even though she wasn't harsh with his handling, Mrs. Johnson was considerably less gentle with the robot than she had been with him when he was still working. For a body that was unable to feel physical pain, this knowledge hurt all the more.

It was sunset when this happened. Mrs. Johnson returned inside promptly after, to watch television with her family, and eventually to bed at a reasonable hour-after all, it was a weeknight. The sun fell entirely behind the silhouettes of the houses in the distance, and 'on' went the streetlights. The little robot was stuck in a dark pocket directly between these lights. The actual street where the cars had passed in the daytime was quite large on this street-the Johnsons lived in a more wealthy area of the town. The sheer expansiveness of the neighborhood was enough to intimidate any creature of the robot's size or smaller, and the fact that the robot was almost completely paralyzed didn't help either. Had the Johnsons known-realized, rather, that the robot could feel things, that he could even begin to feel paranoid as he lay motionless on the lawn, ants crawling up the grass, his chrome head, over his eye plate, they might have considered disposing of him in less anxiety-enducing circumstances.

But they didn't. Even the most thoughtful humans just didn't think that way about robots.

It got worse when the street became completely black, but for the street lights. Homes turned off their living room lights. People went to bed. Except for the occasional late night driver far off in another neighborhood and a lost cricket, the world was silent. The robot's internal clock had broken some weeks ago, so he didn't even know what time it was. He could only approximate by the time the sun set and the time of year that it was around midnight. But much more of his remaining energy was left using memories of the children when they were younger to distract himself-the truly kinder family he'd belonged to, even if they soon forgot he was there.

The neighborhood seemed too quiet. The robot couldn't tell if it was a cricket or a car or something else, but-no, that was a deep rumble in the distance. A truck? This late? But the garbage men weren't due to arrive until the morning.

The robot continued to focus on the noise as the ants began crawling into his joints-he didn't even bother to bat them away with his shaky limbs. Some very deep-set emotion coding was telling the robot to lay as still as possible. The rumbling grew louder, and it didn't sound like any vehicle the robot had ever heard before.

 _It couldn't be._

 _But they disposed of-  
_

The terror rattled through every inch of the robot until he was a rattling heap of steal in the grass. He knew what that sound meant, and _it_ was on their street now.

Just a few years ago, the behemoth automaton prototype had been assigned to sweep the streets of Allentown of trash and grime, but after the mysterious events that had caused the death of a young child, it had been recalled by its creators, and put in a warehouse.

Or so X-Corp said.

The little robot's eyes were locked straight ahead of him, but he knew that the creature was there, wheeling its way closer.

 _"Must... collect... must... dispose..."_

The mechanical voice was just barely audible between the rumbles. The little robot willed itself with all of its power to stop shaking. All he could do at this point was play dead and pray to any deity that existed that the creature would not be able to notice him in the darkness between the streetlights.

Belted wheels carried the creature forward, the sound deafening to the tiny robot's sensitive hearing. Anybody in the neighborhood who had woken and turned over in bed at the tank-like noise outside must have assumed the garbage truck had arrived early. But they did not look at the clock, because it was too early for the garbage truck to arrive. Much too early.

The noise was dying. It was slowing down.

" _Calculating image: Unwanted appliances. Must collect..."_

The little robot's eye darted all around, but he was still facing forward. At last he barely caught a glimpse of the enormous, black box, but he couldn't see anything. Couldn't see the creature's face, its arms...

... until the little robot was lifted. Like a fallen angel, the steely monster picked up the small automaton off of the ground, and he could finally see into its eyes-its giant, red, all seeing eyes. Painted black, it was almost invisible to the robot in the dark of the night, except for its eyes. They were white at the center and momentarily blinded the little automaton, as he heard the creature say:

" _JNZ model, unit 35799925... JNZ... rival... JNZ... unwanted automaton for disposal..."_

 _Nooo... please..._

the little robot pleaded with the creature, but his voice module was truly broken. There was nothing it could do but stare at the monster as it looked him over. The behemoth automaton, once dubbed "The Cleaner" was no longer interested in collecting coffee grounds and loaded diapers. It wanted metal. It wanted _revenge._

The foolish humans. Assuming that the behemoth was just a big dumb machine. That it couldn't have intentionally gone after a human, couldn't have even had the capacity to _want_ to do such a thing. But The Cleaner was just as sentient as any Type B JNZ model. Just as sentient as the tiny, little helpless robot it now held in its clutches.

And it had never been dismantled, as it should have been.

There had been rumors for the past few years, ever since the city of Allentown had welcomed back its human waste management workers, that The Cleaner had never _really_ been locked away. These rumors had sprung up after some people in town, particularly the more affluent residents who could afford to dispose of many appliances and even a robot or two, had noticed that their appliances had been cleared from the curb before the recycling crew had even arrived. Meanwhile, their trash bags appeared to have been run over, spreading all kinds of non-bio-degradable heaps all over their pretty little lawns and mother earth itself. Even the little robot the Johnsons had owned had heard about it. But he had never believed that his worst nightmare would become a reality.

Now as he stared into the eyes of the monster, he knew very well that it wasn't stupid. It wasn't another appliance. It acted by itself.

And because it couldn't get its hands on a human, it took any other sentient creature it could reach. Particularly a rival company's sentient robot.

The little automaton's last thoughts would never be heard to the Johnson's, who were fast asleep in their beds, all humans abiding by the town's curfew. But as he was thrown into the molten belly of the beast, his last wish was that this rouge machine would never, ever get his claws on the Johnson children. Especially not the girl who had given him his tie. He wished with all of his might as his servos recognized the process of death, his chrome body melting into the yellow foundry the creature called a stomach. His temperature gauge was off of the charts, warning lights going off in every part of his still functioning body, until all of the sudden, everything stopped. And there was nothing.

As unceremoniously as it came into the neighborhood, the behemoth Cleaning machine took off, rolling over the Johnson's trash as it left, squishing out the coffee grounds and candy wrappers under its enormous tread belts. It slipped away between the streetlights, and back into the unknown.

The next morning, the Johnsons would wake to their trash can toppled over, crushed by some unknown force. A trail of smashed trash contents stretching across the lawn, all accounted for except for the little automaton who'd been put out the previous evening. One might assume that the robot had been grabbed in the night by a con artist looking to fix the robot and sell him on the cheap, or scrap him for parts. But if ever evident by the look of a yard after a robot had been taken in the night, this was not the act of a typical trash picker. This was something much bigger.

The Johnsons had been visited by the Reaper.

* * *

 _Originally Published January 13th, 2018_

 _Author's Note for the Story:_

Okay, so this passage is going to have to function as a bridge for the 2nd act in this story arc, if you will. Feel free to point out errors I might have not noticed, I'm fixing these as I go along. We get back to the kids in the next part.

I'm borrowing a certain someone's phrase "behemoth" to describe the Cleaner here, because I like it.

EDIT: I was listening to my iPod when writing this and this song appropriately started: watch?v=V3iCik…

 _Whatever Happened to Robot Jones?_ © Greg Miller & Cartoon Network

* * *

 **Chapter 7: Confrontation in the Bathroom**

* * *

The monotony of McMcMc's 3rd period Intermediate Algebra class the next Monday was broken when Robot abruptly announced that he was leaving to 'use the bathroom,' and did not return for the rest of the period. The move surprised Socks and Mitch, who had just yet again watched McMcMc berate Robot after he'd corrected yet another of his errors in lecture. They assumed that suddenly ditching the class was the little automaton's new way of standing up to the insecure teacher. Even McMcMc sounded a little surprised. Socks catching him muttering under his breath about 'that smart little robot taking off while erasing the board.

While in all fairness, McMcMc's class was probably the first one Robot would elect to ditch if he had to, it was also the only time of day Robot knew he could be sure where a certain someone was.

The boys bathroom on the first floor was seemingly empty when Robot stepped inside, but he knew by now that the sight of no shoes at the bottoms of the stalls was deceiving. Confident that he was not invading anybody's private moment, he used his X-Ray vision and saw post-8th grader Steve, sitting on the tank of the toilet in the back left. Feet on the seat, he was reading what appeared, to Robot, to be a comic book, but with real pictures of girls in nearly no clothes.

It was not within him any longer to give formalities to people he didn't like, so Robot proceeded to bang on the stall door like an angry parent on a child's bedroom door. Or rather, his own parents, _when_ they remembered to knock. "Steve!"

"Wha-?" came the boy's confused voice, "Can't you see this one is taken? Go away."

"Steve, it's Robot Jones," Robot said, fiercely. "I need a word with you. Come out for a minute."

"Didn't they program you to know that 'closed door' means something important is going on in here?" Steve asked, sounding legitimately angry. "Or are you as stupid as everybody says you are?"

Robot had expected a fight, but that was a low blow. Without another thought, he sunk his claws onto either side of the door between the gaps, and _RIPPED_ it off its hinges, leaving a terrified looking Steve gazing at it with wide eyes, dirty magazine falling to the floor. Robot then calmly leaned the ruined door against the wall on his right.

"I forgot... you could do that..." he said, eyes still locked on Robot with terror.

"Now, are you going to talk to me?" Robot demanded, now able to look him straight in the eyes. "Or do I have to report that you're bringing R rated publications to school?" Robot picked the magazine off of the ground and wagging it with his claw.

Steve was still incredibly confused, but a boy who was notorious for never showing up for classes wasn't going to be intimidated by a little threat like that. "W-what the hell do you want from me? Is this because I made fun of your friends the other day? Jesus, Jones, you don't take a joke, do you?"

"As a matter of fact," Robot said calmly, but still looking angry, "this has nothing to do with your judgement of my humanoid companions as being 'inexperienced' in the department of romance. But it does have to do with something you said that very same day."

Steve looked confused, even after he took a moment to process Robot's sentence back into words he could understand. "What are you talking about?"

"How much do you know about the story of Andy Fields? Do you know how far back it goes?"

"Hey, look, I said to your friend with the bangs that I don't ever talk about that story. It's not cool-the kid died."

"You're not talking about it because it's 'disrespectful' to Andy," Robot clarified, replacing the word Steve used. "You're not talking about it because you're afraid."

This blow to Steve's masculinity, he would not take. "Hey, it isn't just me, OK? Ask any freshman at the high school right now and they'll be shaking in their boots. And what does it matter to you, anyway?"

"I want to know," Robot said, his tone reinforcing his unwavering intent, " _Why_ is everyone so afraid of that story? And how does everybody seem to know about it, but nobody talks about it?"

"Why are you asking me?" asked Steve.

"Well, you are the notorious keeper of the tales around here, are you not?" Robot asked with a raised eyebrow. "Or has Socks told me another falsehood?"

Steve bit his lip, considering the prospect of losing respect among the student body-the boys, anyway-as the wisest in school, and decided that it was a title he could not afford to lose-not yet, anyways, now that he was now technically the oldest boy still at Polyneux, and overdue to leave. He sighed, and then blurted out: "Alright, alright! I'll tell you what I know."

Robot graciously handed back the dirty magazine. "Tell me."

Steve folded his arms, leaned against the stall wall and sighed. "First off, the Andy story never actually happened at Polyneux."

"You mean Andy didn't go here?" Robot asked.

"Nah, he didn't. The story's been passed around for a while, and I guess the details changed as time went on. At some point it must have been somebody's idea to say that Andy's a ghost from _this_ school. I don't know why. I guess it was just fun to see the sixth graders freak out when they're left in the hallway alone-at least that's how it was when I first got here. Talk to the kids from Davensfield, they think Andy's _their_ ghost. Same for City Central. That's how I figured out Andy probably wasn't from our school. But he was definitely somebody, and a lot of people know about him. And a lot of the details in the story stay the same from town to town."

Robot nodded. "So if Andy never went here, then where did he come from?"

"Hell if I know," Steve said. "The story's all over. Could be that Peppermint Valley school around the corner that stated it, or it could be as far away as Allentown."

 _Allentown,_ Robot thought with a jolt in his circuits. _That's the town from that newspaper article. The one where that robot was accused of murder._ "So, if you know that Andy never went here, why do you continue to let the other students think that he did?"

"I already told you: Not talking about it means not talking about it. Whether or not you beleive Andy is real, I do. And I don't mess with ghosts. Especially with all the weird crap that's been going on lately. Now, are you going to let me get back to reading my issue of July of '77 or not?"

Steve opened the magazine and thrust it back up into his face, but Robot reached up and pulled it back down away from his eyes gently. "Just one more question: Do you have any idea _how_ long this story's been passed around these schools?"

"You're asking a lot of questions. You doin' a paper on this or something?" Steve asked. "And no, as a fact, I have no idea when this story started. I'm not even sure if the dates for when he died are right. But like I said, _something,_ happened."

Robot unpinched the magazine again, turned ninety degrees to the right with uncanny robotic precision, and stormed over to the door, without so much as thanking him.

 _Allentown._ The fact that Robot had had this town's name come up twice in the week that he had begun his investigation sent chills up and down his servos. He'd only ever head of the name in passing perhaps once or twice before, but now it was painfully obvious there was some significance to that town that was begging for his attention. If it wasn't in the Andy story, than it was in finding out more about the rogue robot incident.

Even so, he thought back to what Mom Unit had said Friday night, about the possibility that Andy's real name was lost over time. If the story was spread out over several schools, than it was incredibly likely that this was true.

A time alert went off in Robot's head. Five minutes to the sound of the passing period bell. There would be no point in making his way back up to McMcMc's classroom now. The next period was Robot's study hall-not that Robot Jones ever need to 'study', but he was granted the same privilege as other students-and since he and Socks both had that same class, it was predicable that Socks would be hiding out in the back of the library to wait for his robotic friend there, where Robot would frustratedly watch his humanoid companion with a C average GPA try to get a decent score on a handheld video game for once, if only to shut up Mitch and Cubey and their incessant teasing that Socks was no good at video games.

But on his way there, Robot rounded a corner, and once again found himself colliding face-to-knees with the tall, but wiry Shannon Westerburg. Accidentally running into her was such a common occurrence when Robot had first developed a crush on the girl that he almost forgot that he didn't feel that way about her anymore _,_ gaping up at her from his landing point on the waxed, speckled floor.

 _Or,_ he thought, _at least I don't think I do._

It was the first time they found themselves alone together since the bus incident, and they both must have realized it, because neither of them knew what to say, or if they should say anything at all. It was so jarring that it took a minute for Robot's memory banks to remind him that he was supposed to be 'not talking' with her, and pretty much hating her existence right now-at least that's what all the teen magazines would tell him to do. Which pretty much told him that what he was supposed to do at this point was stand up, and walk away. "My apologizes," he said flatly, brushing himself off and walking around her, down the turn.

But Shannon wasn't about to let this opportunity slip away. "Hey, wait, don't you wanna... talk?"

She ran around the corner and watched his mechanical walking halt, but he didn't turn around. "I don't believe we have anything to talk about."

Shannon gawked at him like he was a stranger passing on the street that she'd sworn was a friend once. "So... that's it? You're just never going to me again? Ever?"

"Negative," he responded. He should have stopped there, but something building inside him was pushing more words out. "Unless you fancy trivial, phony conversations that avoid real issues, in which in your case, I don't doubt it. But I don't. So, good day."

Like Steve, it took Shannon a moment to figure out what he'd said, but her expression when she figured it out was more hurt than angry. As he began moving, Shannon ran forward, blocking his path with her body.

Part of her thought that if she could just look him in the eyes again, alone, he wouldn't be able to overlook the honesty in hers. That he wouldn't be able to walk away from her apology, and normality between them would _have_ to reform. And for a split second, Robot's surprised expression almost lead her to believe it was going to work. "Look, I'm sorry, OK? Is that what you've been waiting to hear? Sorry?"

A little voice in Robot's head was pleading: _Yes! Yes, that's all I've wanted from you! An apology, an acknowledgement that you were wrong, an acknowledgement that you truly like me enough to stand up for me without pity!_ And were this voice still in control of Robot's body, this is what he would have said. But the bus incident had broken Robot's heart, and from it hatched a sentient creature that took control of his every thought and sentence every time she was near. Even though Robot was faintly aware of the voice that ached to forgive Shannon and return to the status quo, the hatchling had his iron grip over Robot's voice, and he wasn't about to be persuaded, even by genuineness this time.

"If you were truly sorry," he said, growing anger in his robotic voice, "You would have said something-anything-to me in the last six months. But no-you waited. Hoped that I'd get over it and you wouldn't have to acknowledge it."

Part of that was true, Shannon realized, guiltily. She _had_ hoped that this problem would just fix itself. Hoped that it would pass over, that the cartoon would roll into the next episode with all problems gone. That she'd wake up and Robot will have forgiven her. But it doesn't work that way in real life. And it wasn't going to be that easy, here.

She wondered why she hadn't prevented this before it was too late. Why hadn't she just taken him into a dark stairwell or a back alley and told him the truth about how she felt so long ago? Maybe she couldn't stop the rest of the school for treating him as the did, but at least he could have understand that she didn't wish this on him. That she didn't want to avoid him, to make fun of him. But she didn't have a choice.

 _I should have been honest with him a long time ago,_ she thought. _No time like the present._ But she wasn't about to say _everything_ to him. Just enough to get him to stop hating her. Baby steps. Baby truths.

"Maybe..." she sighed. "Maybe I didn't know how to say it." She gave herself pauses, trying to find the best way to word what she wanted to communicate, but it wasn't easy. "Come on, Robot, you know I'm not that smart. If I were smarter... if I were a different person... "

She thought, if she were like Emmy Patterson, the kid from her 8th grade English who wrote that poem that went to the regional championship, Shannon would know how to take a situation like this, and word an apology that would drive Robot right back into trusting her. Hell, if she were as smart as Emmy Patterson, she probably would have never found herself in this mess, having found the perfect articulation that would save her sorry butt from awkwardness with this guy, even when she tried to save his social reputation. But she wasn't like Emmy Patterson, and sheer honesty alone wasn't going to craft a perfectly reasonable explanation for her actions. Shannon didn't know how to explain why she did what she did.

Despite looking superior to other humans to Robot, despite being physically less fleshy than everybody else, there was nothing that really made her different. Not where it counted. She was perfectly human, and nothing more. C-grade. Average. Even her art skills weren't good enough to get her in the art case on the 2nd floor. And him? He was a robot. He was made to be perfect, to get straight A's and nothing less. Sitting in the front of the class, while she sat in the back, and tried not to be called on. He might not have had hair, or been handsome. But he was cute. And he was smart. And he had more talent in his claw than she had in her whole body. Her ugly, stupid, buck toothed, freckled-faced body. She felt like she could have ripped her hair out of her skull. Why had she ever thought that he like-liked her? Right now, she couldn't even find a reason to like herself.

"If you were a different person...?" Robot repeated with a raised eyebrow. Shannon hadn't realized she'd trailed off for so long. She would have flushed, if she didn't already feel like dirt.

 _But I thought you were different,_ Robot said in his head. _That's what hurts about it. I know what the other humans are like, and I know what my friends are like. But the fact that I don't know which one you are is destroying me from the inside-_

 _'What are you doing?'_

the hatchling screamed. _'You will not let her in again, just to rip her way back out of you!'_ He was mad at her for everything. But most of all, he was mad at her for not understanding. That he needed to explain to her why he was mad.

But what Robot didn't understand was that Shannon did understand. She just didn't know how to articulate it.  
 _  
_"... but I'm not," Shannon finished, barely feeling herself talk. "I am what I am," she spoke in a shaky tone. And she began backing away, wanting to get away before he extended this thought. All at once, it was becoming too obvious that this wasn't going to work. Them. As friends. As anything. Why had she ever thought they had HAD anything?

She went running to the stairwell, her body on autopilot, leaving Robot to stand in the hallway. As the bell finally rang for passing period, the hatchling monster receded back into its hiding spot deep within, leaving Robot's conscious to resurface.

What was wrong with him? Shannon was going to apologize. She was going to admit she was wrong, and he wouldn't accept it. Something inside him had refused to take it. Could it be that Robot had developed a greater sense of self worth, or was it pride, or... something else?

A flash video memory played in his head then, suddenly. Socks' hand falling on Shannon's as he helped her gather the scattered paper fallen out of her locker. Shannon's face when she saw that Robot had seen that. Robot's cheeks were suddenly very hot. Why did _this_ thing keep coming back to him? Every time he was getting ready to get over what happened all those months ago, that video would play on a loop in his head, and that voice, that hatchling, would begin its incessant squawking. In all the time he'd spent at Polyneux, he'd never felt so compelled to withdraw from the both of them. But it didn't make sense. It was Shannon he was mad at. Why was Socks getting pulled into his grudge?

"Hey Robot!"

Robot grimaced. Just as he was thinking about him...

He turned around slowly, trying to hide any trace of what had happened from his expression. Meanwhile, Socks' face was lit up with a big grin. "I would've thought you were in the back of the library by now. Dude, everybody at the end of class was talking about you!"

All previous thoughts were put on hold. "They were?" Robot asked.

"Yeah! They couldn't believe you, of all people, would walk out on McMcMc like that. I mean, you've stood up to him before, but never like that! You're the talk right now, man!"

"I am?" Robot asked again, dazed. But suddenly, Robot remembered that sudden fame in the halls meant trouble, and trouble meant detention. "Am I in trouble?"

"Nah, McMcMc probably figured you were in the right, so he didn't even call the office this time."

"He didn't?" Robot asked. If he were in better spirits right now, this would have been a moment of celebration. But Robot didn't mean to stand up to McMcMc today-or any day, really, but McMcMc always mistook his honesty for sass. He didn't deserved to be praised in hushed whispers, or to have a bunch of eighth grade girls smiling at him as they passed him walking to their next class.

It was the point that Socks noticed Robot looking uncomfortable at the girls who were leering at him that he realized something was up. "You OK man? You look spooked or something."

Robot snapped to attention. He couldn't come out to Socks on this one, not when Socks was part of the problem. "Oh it's-nothing. It's just that I ran into... uh... Steve, in the hallway."

"That bum still showing up to school?" Socks asked.

To Robot's knowledge, Steve still had to show up to class sometimes if he actually wanted to graduate this time around. But he only had to retake English, Math and Gym, which meant he didn't need to even be on campus the whole day, and hung out in his usual place in the bathroom in between periods that he didn't need to be anywhere. Having a second and fourth period class was how Robot knew for sure that Steve would be there during 3rd.

"Was he bothering you?" Socks asked.

It was the type of honest question Robot would have expected from his mother, but said like a brother. A real brother. Which made the fact that Robot was feeling weird about Socks lately all the worse. "No, not at all. I stopped to ask him about the Andy Fields story."

Hearing this made Socks suddenly look winded. "You're still going on about that?"

Robot stopped him before he could go on a ranting session. "Hear me out: I thought he would know something about the origin of the story. As it turns out, the story might not even be from here. From Polyneux."

"What makes you say that?"

"Supposedly other towns know about the story, too, and claim Andy as their ghost."

"Whoa," Socks exhaled, pausing as they reached the top of the first flight of stairs. "So he's been keeping this a secret from everybody just to torture the younger grades?"

"Yes, and I'm not supposed to have told anyone," Robot said with narrowed eyes. "Besides, it is a conflict in my investigation, so if it suits you, I'd rather not let this information leak until I've cracked the case."

As Robot continued to climb, Socks paused, mouth agape. But he soon shook his head. The thought of ghosts in itself still gave him the creeps, and he really wasn't interested in pursuing this case with his strong-headed companion. "Whatever. I'm just glad that we'll all be out of here in a couple of months."

Robot felt the need to remind Socks that he also wouldn't graduate on time with the rest of their class if Socks didn't bring his F in English up to a C. But he knew it was no use, as the blond boy took him by the shoulder and guided him towards the library, where they would ironically not study at all.

Robot really didn't want to be by Socks right now. Not after he'd just ran into Shannon and started having those images of their hands touching playing in his head again. But he knew if he started acting strangely, Socks would catch on that something wasn't right.

And there was something else on Robot's mind that he didn't want to necessarily share with his humanoid confident. He remembered the book he saw Shannon with at the library. He'd been awfully curious about what caused Shannon to check out a book on robotics, especially since at the time that he wasn't mad at her, any interest she suddenly had in robotics would have been such a turn on for him. But for as much as he wanted to find her and ask about it, his pride, and his grudge, were stronger.

* * *

 _Originally Published February 20th, 2018_

 _Author's Note for the Story:_

I've given this fanfic a more identifiable title. I wasn't going to, but I guess since I'm going to be staying on this story arc for a while, it needs to be called something that's actually relevant to the current chapter, not just the Friday the 13th where it started.

All chapters in this fanfic are going to get their own titles from now on that relate to what goes on within that chapter, too. I had wanted to imagine this in script-format with one-word titles that I could actually imagine being used in the series, but the way this particular story is going, I can't imagine each chapter being its own complete episode, since it doesn't have Robot doing the whole DLE at the end, the individual moral of each episode, etc. But I'll try to find something in each chapter to title it with to set it apart, so it doesn't get to chapter 47 or some shit and it all blends together into mush.

Otherwise, same old same.

I don't know why, but I have a lot of stuff for Steve-the-stall-boy to do in this story. Someone I knew once did a rant about what a useless one-off character this was, his one and only appearance in the series being Gender, but I figure he could be of some use here, even if I'm not arguing that he's a great character or not a dick or anything. I find him amusing, if a little unhinged, like Madman. And I like the trope of showing that the once dubbed 'wise one' is a fraud. So.

This chapter took TWO WEEKS to type up, in short breaks I got at my desk and what I could sneak done in my class. I'm really reaching for ideas here until it gets to, like, act II of this, where we get to more twists. Again, I swear to God like now fanfic writer has ever promised before, stuff will go down.

 _Whatever Happened to Robot Jones?_ © Greg Miller & Cartoon Network


	8. Objective Lost

As Robot was heading up to the library with Socks, Shannon was heading downstairs. Her mind was so full, and her eyes were so... blurry. Before she could register that what was causing it was tears, she pushed open the door to the staircase and wound up colliding with another girl, who had her back turned. A groan, more out of annoyance than pain, escaped her throat.

 _Two full-body collisions in one day,_ she thought. _Smooth, Shannon._ She was just hoping being a klutz was something she'd grow out of as well, if her mother had any clue what she was talking about when she hinted that Shannon would grow out of her awkward phase.  
 _  
_"I'm so sorry," Shannon said quickly, not recognizing the girl she'd run into. She was very small, as well as thin, and unlike Robot, likely to be hurt by getting hit in the face by a door.

"Oh! No, I'm sorry!" the other girl said, holding up her hands like she'd run into a cop. "I wasn't looking where I was going! I should have paid attention that there was a staircase here!"

Shannon quickly noticed the familiar looking white paper in her small hands that must have been a class schedule. The same one she saw the sixth graders run around with frantically at the start of every semester, running into each other like chickens in a pen. This girl wasn't frantic, but from her embarrassed expression, she was obviously lost. "You're new. I mean, you must be new. That's... that's great!" she saved quickly. She didn't want the new girl to see the flicker of worry that had surfaced behind her eyes. "We don't get a lot of new students here."

The smartly-dressed girl looked up, surprised. "Oh, yes, I am. I was hoping I could talk to someone about where my next class is?"

The girl showed Shannon the schedule, and Shannon pointed back behind the girl. "I think you passed it already. Here, why don't I show you around."

The mousy girl beamed up at her. "That's very nice of you. I've been showing up late to all my classes today-Oh! And my name's June."

"No problem," Shannon said, guiding the girl back the way she'd just come. "And it's Shannon."

She'd never really been one to be this outgoing, but she was just grateful for the distraction. Grateful for the chance to feel useful. She quickly jotted some notes on the girl's schedule about the way the three-story building was ordered, such as where to find the English and Math wings, and which was the quickest route to get from there.

"Hey, you have the same English class as me," Shannon said with a smile. "So you're an eighth grader?"

June grinned, but looked down at her shoes, with all the shyness Shannon had come to expect of a sixth grader. "Well, sort of. You see, I skipped some grades back at my last school. I was supposed to be in the sixth grade this year, but I was tested, and I guess they thought I could handle some eighth grade classes."

Shannon nearly dropped everything she was carrying. "You tested two grades up?" Part of her was amazed to be standing in front of this person. She could easily see this girl flip her silky, black ponytail behind her back and brag about this information, but June seemed like she was admitting something that was embarrassing. Shannon briefly reflected on a time, back in elementary school, when her teacher wanted to move her from the third grade to the fifth grade. She could have been out of Polyneux two years ago, at that rate. But that was back when Shannon was a very different kid, someone with ambition and a go-getting personality that she wasn't ashamed of. She didn't want to move up out of her grade and risk losing her friends, which she ended up losing, anyway. And the offer made her self conscious, for the first time, about looking 'weird.'

It was probably for the better, anyway. Once Shannon met the torture that was pre-algebra, it was all she could do to keep from falling _back_ a grade. She hadn't qualified to skip a grade in a long time, and she didn't think she wanted it anymore than she did back then. But oddly enough, she found herself envious that June had accepted an opportunity that Shannon hadn't been bold enough to do. However, June's shyness only endeared the girl to her more. Shannon quickly buried her resentment and said: "Your parents gotta be psyched."

June's grin turned down, and she shrugged. "My dad is. My mom, she just kind of expects it of me." She then looked Shannon in the eyes, as if showing her around the hallways had proven that the metal-wrapped girl could be trustworthy of the following bit of personal information. "Nothing I ever do really impresses her."

Shannon was taken aback by the sadness that flickered in June's deep brown eyes. But like Shannon, June had mastered the art of quickly masking her emotions, and a forced, but oddly believable smile replaced her frown. "But I don't let that stop me."

Shannon lead the girl to her science class, promising to meet back up at the end of the period to take her to the cafeteria. She'd hate to leave this girl to be alone during her first lunch at the school, and secretly, she was afraid of her getting pulled in by the wrong people. Especially given how vulnerable she seemed.

Even after the bell rang for the start of the next period, Shannon at least had the excuse that she was guiding a new student around, so that her teacher might excuse her tardy. Her real problem came right around the corner, seeking her out. "She's pretty. Who is she?"

Shannon spun around, feeling a very similar dread that had overcome Robot a little while earlier, when Socks had found him.

"Who? June?" asked Shannon, narrowing her eyes, trying to act nonchalant. "I was just showing her around, alright?" Shannon said, feeling what had become the usual defensiveness she felt around Pam's accusations, even when she said them with a big smile.

"Ah, so a new girl?" Pam said with folded arms. "Well, that's nice. Who asked you to do that, Mrs. Raincoat?"

Shannon narrowed her eyes, not liking Pam's tone. "No, I did it myself. And what's that's supposed to mean?"

Pam shrugged, ignoring the question. "Just be careful, Shannon. It's not good for an upper classmen to be seen walking with a sixth grader. People might start to think you were friends or something."

Shannon's cheeks burned. She was overly conscious of herself already. She didn't need Pam to be conscious of how Shannon looked, too. "She's not my friend, we literally just met." She meant to stop there, but And FYI, she's skipped two grades to be in our class, so she's not just some dumb, awkward sixth grader."

This bit of information was like a splash of cold water in Pam's previously bored looking face. "She did?" A smile slowly spread on her face. "Well, I guess that changes things. Think she's good at math?"

"I-I don't know, I guess she'd have to be-" Shannon stopped, looking at her best friend incredulously. "Wait, what are you thinking?"

Pam was rubbing her chin. "Come to think of it, it's been a long time since we had a new girl at our table, don't you think?"

Shannon kept her lips shut. Despite being a massive school, Polyneux didn't get a lot of new students, at least none to contribute to Shannon's graduating class. Because the school was a filter-in from so many surrounding schools, everybody who was due to graduate next may had been there since the start of sixth grade. And the added prospect of being a middle school, where students attended for only three years, probably added to the lack of new faces in the hallways mid semester. Who wanted to show up in the middle of eighth grade if they could avoid it?

She did, in fact, remember the last new kid in Shannon's class-if Finkman, being a foreign exchange student, didn't count. And he was not only a source of turbulence in the staff-and-student relationship that kids Shannon's age had only ever known, but he was a tornado that stormed right through Shannon's life every time she thought the waters had settled. How simple would her life be if Robot had never become a student at Polyneux, if he'd been shipped off to some other school? How clear everything would seem, if Robot didn't make everything so confusing?

Pam didn't need to know that Robot made Shannon feel this way.

Without a response, the red head went on: "She's an eighth grader, AND a clean slate! We gotta get to her before all the snobs get to her!"

Shannon didn't have a proper response to this. She thought of all the girls they sat with at lunchtime, and couldn't figure out how this new girl would be any more significant than the ones they were usually seen with. But apparently, Pam saw potential in a new female student who had no bias towards or against anyone here. Or, perhaps, usefulness. Pam wasn't talking friendship territory. She was talking _best-_ friend territory.

In a gesture not unlike a proud father towards his son, Pam grabbed Shannon in one arm and squeezed until it felt like something in Shannon's skinny frame was going to pop. "That was smooth, catching her trying to figure out her schedule."

"But I didn't-" Shannon started.

"Anyway," Pam interrupted, "You did your part. Let me sit next to her at lunch and take care of the rest. By the end of the day, she'll know who's on the up-and-up." She wrapped up that thought with a wink at her best friend.

Shannon was irritated. She had no desire to brainwash June into thinking that they were the only two students at this school that she could trust. Shannon really didn't care for June that much-they _had_ just met, after all. But if June was as mousy and shy as she came off to be, she would be putty in Pam's hands. And that miffed Shannon.

But once Pamela Simon got an idea into her head, she was a bull about it. Particularly about nabbing friends and acquaintances for her own side of this middle school popularity war. And Shannon had never really been able to convince Pam to see reason. It was only around this time last year, during their art museum trip, that Shannon had got so fed up with Pam and her treating middle school like a war of alliances that she had to get away for a day. But like in a cartoon, things had had to reset the very next day. Shannon apologized for ditching Pam, Pam shrugged it off like she'd barely noticed Shannon wasn't there, and her world as she knew it returned to order. Pam had never even had a reason to think that Shannon had spent the day with the school's biggest pariah, Robot Jones.

Shannon wanted to stop Pam's calculating right there and then, but as soon as she opened her mouth, she figured there was no use, and let out a sigh instead. And knowing Pam for as long as Shannon did, it wasn't a good idea to act like she was trying to work against her.

Just then, Pam and Shannon heard very exaggerated laughter coming from around the corner. Pam's grin dropped like an anchor, and instantly, she took on a look of disgust. "Ugh, Zombie alert."

She and Shannon both turned the corner, taking glances at the girl who was making all the noise. Standing outside an open locker, with a door covered in pink frills that embroidered a large mirror, was a girl roughly as tall and as skinny as Shannon, but different in every other way. Her dark brown hair was tied up with a white scrunchie, her leather jacket and mini skirt one size too small, even for her. And her face was covered in so much makeup, it made Shannon feel self-conscious of the fact that her own face was naked. The little pink bow barrette from when she was younger that was holding up a piece of her hair away from her ear that day made her feel all the more childish. Valerie, on the other hand, looked like she belonged in high school.

Though Shannon agreed that Valerie was obnoxious, she couldn't bring herself to despise Valerie the way Pam did. The person she was laughing with, the person that Valerie was almost always seen with, was taller than both she and Shannon, probably making her the second tallest girl at Polyneux. And her height was artificially increased by the well maintained Afro hairdo. Both girls sported practically identical hoop earrings-Valerie's silver, Trina's gold-and surrounded themselves with loud, unashamed laughter.

To say that Valerie and Trina were Polyneux's most popular girls was an over-generalization. To say they were the most _infamous_ girls, however, was more accurate. There was a time when Valerie, in particular, was known for changing boyfriends almost as often as she changed her clothes. And between them, it was heavily suspected that she did more than kissing.

While most of the moderately popular girls at Polyneux tended to just stay away from Valerie and Trina, and talk about them behind their backs, it was Pam who was bold enough to talk about them to their face.

It was Trina this time who was telling a story to Valerie. "So I tell Mary and Roger, 'You two can do whatever you like, but not in my mother's laundry room!'"

"That is so bad!" Valerie said, laughing.

Watching from her vantage point, Pam rolled her eyes. "They are such hypocrites: Talking about other girls getting loose with boys when they flirt with everything that has a pulse."

"Why do you care so much?" asked Shannon, genuinely curious.

"It's a matter of putting people in their place, Shannon. Watch this:" And with that, Pam strolled confidently around the corner, trying to put a feminine gait to her normally heavy walking pattern. "Hey Valerie, do you mind not downing us in your Oh-de-skank perfume? Or is it that you don't want your boyfriends to smell your cigarettes all over you?"

Valerie stopped laughing, and looked up to see who had insult her. Shannon internally cringed because knew this scene too well. Pam would casually insult a girl she didn't particularly like, that girl would either A) look hurt or visibly cry, and go running for a teacher, who would do absolutely nothing about it either way, or b) say something back to get Pam to shut up. The former usually didn't change anything for them, but the latter had mixed results. Most of the time, it resulted in Pam becoming a true, cold enemy with that person, but sometimes, rarely, it ended with Pam winning over what she considered an equally intelligent and witty ally. That was how Pam won over a lot of the girls she sat with. At one point or another, they'd scoffed at each other in the hallway, and then eventually, they grew on each other. That's even how Pam and Stacey became friends way back in 5th grade, Shannon was told.

That's even how Pam won Shannon over, Shannon unwillingly remembered.

And just as Shannon was imagining it, it looked as if the perfect retort was forming right there, behind Valerie's heavily blackened eyelashes. She might not have been popular for being a straight A student, but she wasn't stupid, and definitely had the brains to craft a witty insult back at Pam. But instead of letting it roll off her tongue with all the grace it seemed that she contained, her smile faltered, and she turned back to Trina as if she'd just found out some somber news. "You were saying, Trina?"

Trina gave Pam a smirking glance before returning her eyes to her friend. And this dismissal of her insult, this denial of a response at all annoyed Pam more than any sort of actual response Valerie could have given her.

This wasn't the first time Pam had tried to trigger Valerie, and Shannon could sense by Pam's persistence that she might have been hoping to impress Valerie enough to get in her good graces. But at this point, it didn't seem like it was going to happen, and Pam was just keeping up public insults so Valerie would never get a chance to corner her with one of her own. But of all the girls who didn't run crying from the insults, Valerie never took that opportunity to get back at Pam. It made her wonder if Pam's insults about her trashiness just rolled off her. And why.

Defeated, Pam yanked Shannon by the shoulder and stormed off, heading to the staircase to Pam's next class, even though, as Shannon neglected to remind her, her next class was on their current floor.

Upstairs in the library, while Socks maintained his scheduled appointment with the handheld game system set to mute in the back of the library, Robot excused himself, left the blond boy in the library, and headed for the office. He'd been planning this since the weekend, but there wasn't a lot of room for error, so he'd have to be as precise as his robotic nature would let him.

The click of the door alerted Ms. Wilson to the presence of another person, so she looked confused when she looked up and nobody was standing there. Robot had to politely grunt so that her eyes would tip downward and behold the four-foot tall student that was barely visible behind her tall desk. "Oh! Robot! Sorry, dear, I barely-"

"Noticed me," Robot said, refraining from rolling his eyes. Gretchen Wilson had been Madman's personal secretary and the closest thing the school had to a vice principal, but because Madman was a paranoid man who hated a balance of power, no such position existed at Polyneux middle school. And the school-board was too busy with other problems to do anything about it, or to assign one. It was much easier to refer to Ms. Wilson, who's office was connected to Madman's by a door in the back, as the 'secretary'. Robot wished Ms. Wilson _was_ the vice principal. Even though she wasn't the kindest woman alive, Robot had always sensed that Ms. Wilson didn't have the same distrust about himself that Madman had, and if anybody in the school could calm down Madman when his irrational fears got the best of him, it was this adult standing right here, peering down at him. "I thought I should inform you that Principal Madman is currently in the lunch room, having a massive argument with one of the students about carrying gum in their pockets, despite not chewing it on campus."

Ms. Wilson rounded to the front of her desk without Robot having to say another word. "Oh, what has gotten into that man now?-oh, ahem, pardon me," she cleared her throat in front of the student. "I must go see what the trouble is. If you would excuse me, Robot," she said, motioning for Robot to follow her out of the room. But once they were both outside of the office, and her heels clicked around the corner and out of earshot, Robot turned back to her office.

If he had tried to break into the office at nighttime, it would be locked, along with all the other doors to the building, and it would be too apparent to a very paranoid principal that he had either picked the lock, or broke it down with his robotic strength. The only inconspicuous thing to do was get inside when it wasn't locked, and that would mean at a time when Ms. Wilson was in the building. Robot calculated the approximate fifteen minutes it would take for her to reach the cafeteria on her heels, realize Madman was merely enjoying the slop the cafeteria served along with the rest of the students-Robot had to make sure Madman was out of his own office as well when he did this-and return back to her office to figure that the dispute had passed without incident. By then, Robot would be long gone, but he secretly thanked his luck that he didn't have fingerprints, and that this opportunity had come about only because their principal was a notorious ticking time bomb.

Speaking of ticking, Robot set two alarms on his internal clock to remind him to get out of there before slipping into the unlocked office. With the lights on, it almost seemed like Robot wasn't committing any kind of serious crime by breaking into student records, but he didn't let that fool him. He had to be quick about this.

He closed the office door and turned. To his right was the desk, which sat just tall enough that Robot had to extend his legs to see its top. There were a few photographs, a snow-globe paperweight, and a crisp, new manila folder with the name "Watts, Jane," written neatly on the side. Robot was too distracted to process that it probably meant they had a new late-starting student at the school, though.

To his left, almost as tall as the office itself, were two huge shelves, lined with student files in alphabetical order. It wasn't a secret that the student files from prior years weren't kept under any more lock and key than the office was itself, which took one less annoying step out of Robot's plan. Instead, they were stuffed into those wooden shelves sideways, like books on a bookcase. Next to it were the rows of new filing cabinets which held current student records, all of which appeared to be locked-except for the bottom one, which Ms. Wilson must have been working on before Robot interrupted her. Several student's folders sat sideways, so that their names faced upwards. Even though it had been low of Robot's immediate line of sight, it was so jarring, amid Ms. Wilson's neatly tucked shelves. But he wasn't concerned with these right now.

Steve's admission earlier that morning that Andy probably didn't go to Polyneux should have cancelled Robot's plan to sneak into Ms. Wilson's student files later that day, but Robot was still curious. If Steve was as serious as he looked that Andy was a real kid with a real mysterious disappearance, than he had to have gone somewhere. And the more Robot got involved with this case, the harder it was for him to let it go.

What was this case, anyway? Robot thought to himself. Was he trying to prove that Andy wasn't a student here, or that he wasn't a ghost or... what? So far, he couldn't even prove the kid was _real_. But was that all he wanted to know? Or was there something else that made him obsessed with this story? How could a machine _lose_ his objective?

That thought lead to another thought, which made Robot's face burn with anger. He didn't really know his objective with going to school, with interacting with these humans, with studying them, but he kept going, anyway. Without Shannon, he wouldn't have even gone his second day of school. He wouldn't have met Cubey, or Mitch, or Socks. It hurt to realize that everything good in his life right now was the result of a person who didn't care about him. Or, at least, not the way he cared about her. The way he _used_ to care about her, he mentally corrected himself.

So, why was he doing this? Going to school? Going along with these daily missions he was assigned? Being given the responsibility without being entrusted with the greater purpose? Did his parents even know what the greater purpose was? Or were they as ignorant as he was? It suddenly depressed him how little he understood about his own life, despite all the progress he'd made towards understanding the ins and outs of humanity.

But he didn't have time to dwell on this. The first alarm went off in his head. By the time he heard Ms. Wilson's heels clip-clopping their way back to the office, it would be too late. Without another thought, Robot dived into the files on the wall.

Logically, he went for the F's first, and quickly came up short of the name 'Fields' in Ms. Wilson's immaculate filing. But then he remembered again what his mother had said about Andy being listed under a different name, and kept his eyes open for names that sounded roughly similar.

Filberto.. Fine... Finkman... Finnegan... _Finkman?_

Robot's arm shot out from his side and yanked the file named 'Finkman' off of the shelf, without even thinking about what he was going to do with it. Read it? Or burn it with his lasers, right in his hands? He was so angry, he knew his lasers would work right now.

It had been almost two years since he'd come across that name, and despite his distant feeling about Shannon now, a fire reignited within him. In all his life prior, he'd never known a unit to not only be so deceiving and manipulative, but to work against another robot's mission-which, Robot believed at the time, was to prove he could integrate with humans.

Finkman was as bad as the humans he pandered to, maybe even worse. Robot neglected to give his parents this particular data log related to Finkman, and especially kept Grampz unit from learning about Finkman. It was bad enough that Grampz frowned upon Robot's claim that his friendship with Socks, Mitch and Cubey was genuine, but he'd grimace to think of the old computer comparing the likes of Finkman to himself. The only thing he and Finkman had in common was that they were from the same generation of units, but Finkman's underhanded nature was enough to give Grampz the wrong idea about 'this generation.'

Robot didn't even know that Finkman _had_ a file here-that foreign exchange students got proper files, like all the others, although he didn't know why he assumed otherwise. If anybody needed documentation, it was the foreign exchange student who seemed to enroll without incident, and then take off, mid semester, and mid-program. Finkman's file was not very large, but it did contain a decent amount of paperwork, suggesting to Robot that a lot of forms and identification had to be done in order to prevent the school from being sued over the disappearance of a student. Even though Robot was fairly sure Finkman had no robotic family and his owners were not going to press charges for a robot they had sent out specifically to steal government documents, that didn't mean that there wouldn't be somebody outraged that a minor had pretty much disappeared. For the first time since the Finkman incident, Robot found himself curious about _who_ had been exchanged out of Polyneux that semester, so that Finkman could come here from Austria.

The second alarm went off in Robot's head. Ms. Wilson would be back soon. His time was up. And instead of being any closer to figuring out one mystery, Robot had just reopened another. _Great_ , he thought. He quickly contemplated the idea of putting Finkman's file back, but now he was deeply curious. Now that he could separate his personal jealousy from the true wrongness of what Finkman had done, he wanted to know more about the android. And since Finkman was unlikely ever to come back, who would be looking for his file, anyway? Robot slid the manila folder into his chassis and turned to leave.

And that's when he spotted it:

 _No, no, it can't be the same person.  
_  
As he was glancing over the open filing cabinet drawer near the floor one more time, the name 'Westerburg, Shannon' stood out to him, the last file that had been sat up sideways out of the drawer. Suddenly, Robot's memory flashed back to what Finkman had said about having stolen 'secret government documents', and for the first time, he wondered if Finkman had pried into other kinds of files during his time here. Some of the less government-y type and more of the very personal type. Kind of like what Robot was doing now, only Robot felt his intentions were far more earnest.

As long as he left Shannon's file where it was, that is.

But he couldn't move. It felt like his legs were glued in place. If this were six months ago, he'd rip into that file without a moment's thought. He'd do anything he could to learn more about the person he was obsessed with, including anything that could aid in his attempt to win her over. But that was then, and this was now. And now, he didn't know what he wanted. Did Shannon still intrigue him enough to get him to pry into her confidential files? The answer, though he hated to admit it, was yes. Even though there was no more hope in his heart that she would ever love him, he was still ungodly fascinated with her. What was it about her that made her stand out to him, like a black sheep in a while lamb's farm? Maybe it was a complex strain of interactions they'd had. Maybe it was nothing at all, and the attraction he had felt for her, what made her special, was all in his head. Or, maybe, it was as simple as turning open the cover of a manila folder.

Which, is exactly what Robot did. Silencing the ethical-error part of his brain that would be screaming at him otherwise, Robot yanked the file out of the bottom shelf, and paused for a moment. If he just turned her folder in sideways into its place right now, he'd have committed no wrong.

Of course, he didn't give two licks about honoring the privacy of a foreign-exchange robot, who had done nothing but make Robot's life miserable in the brief period he was there. But this was different. This was someone he once almost could have called his friend. If there had been anything about her that she had wanted to tell him, any sort of secret that she felt she could have entrusted to Robot, she would have done that. She'd had the chance, when they were sort-of friends. Or, hadn't she? Robot remembered, back when he had unwillingly hosted that party at his house early on in seventh grade, that he had gotten Shannon alone for a few moments. And for those few moments, everything seemed to be without pretense for once. And Shannon admitted she'd had something to tell him. He hadn't thought about it much at the time, with the space between them narrowing and the thought of a kiss on his mind, but now... what if that secret she had had to tell was right here, in his hands?

The kiss... the almost kiss...

He flipped open the file with a harsh motion, which jolted him enough to stop that train of thought. His eyes fell onto a short, pink slip of paper, which was clipped to the top of the larger, white stack of papers. Those other papers, Robot thought, must have been the generic transfer papers, and whatever other documentation needed for a student to prove they'd finished up through 5th grade, and therefore qualified to attend Polyneux. (He secretly wondered if the same qualifications were asked of McMcMc when he applied for a teaching position here.) But Robot knew right away that that pink slip of paper was not normal.

For one thing, it was hand written. The only printed wording was the title "P.E. Pardons" at the top. And though Robot's ability to read cursive was as rough as a lot of kids his age, the handwriting was perfectly neat and clear:

 **Physical Education Pardons**

 _Ms. Westerburg will not be required to take the annual fitness_  
 _assessment test at the beginning of her sixth, seventh, and eighth_  
 _grade years. Reason: See doctor's packet attached:_

"Did I shut my door before I left?" came a confused female voice, trickling from the other side of the door.

Robot's servos spun _,_ as his eyes were yanked away from the page, and onto the willowy outline of a woman on the other side of the office door. _I completely ignored the second alarm!_ Now, it was too late to get out of there. Robot's head spun around in circles, but there was no other exit, and Ms. Wilson's office had no windows-naturally, Madman had been so kind as to give her the only office in school with no natural lighting. Robot's defensive mode kicked on and laid out options for hiding before his eyes. But before he could follow through with ducking behind one of the huge file shelves, or transforming into a piece of office furniture and attempting to blend in, another, simpler idea came to him.

Ms. Wilson opened the door, looking every bit as puzzled as she'd sounded from the other side, and stepped in. Her eyes briefly swept over the files, including the new one on her desk, but nothing looked out of order from how she had left it, and thought nothing more of it. She rounded the corner and sat back at her desk, but before her bottom could rest in the seat of her chair, the door opened and slammed again, so fast that her eyes missed the entire thing. She practically fell into her chair only to shuffle back up, open the door, and peer out. Class was in session, and the hallway was empty. As much as she suspected something was amiss, she had nothing but the wind to blame for what had happened-even if she didn't have any windows for the wind to have come from.

Around the corner, Robot Jones was shaking from the massive heap of trouble he'd narrowly escaped. Of course, if Ms. Wilson hadn't seen him behind the desk when he'd walked in, again, the chances are that she'd notice him rounding the left side of her desk, to the front of it, and out the door would be highly unlikely. Robot's shortness evading her line of sight simply didn't occur to her, and he didn't know whether to feel irritated at how hard it was for him to be noticed, or grateful for the one thing his shortness was good for.

He was so concentrated on getting out of there uncaught that he didn't realize until he was safely alone in the hallway that he was still holding Shannon's file, closed in his hands.

 _Great_ , he thought again. Now he was stuck with _two_ files. One of which he really didn't want in the first place. In the place of the anxiety he felt to break out of the office scott-free was a brand new anxiety. Even if for some reason someone was looking for Finkman's file and noticed it missing, Robot doubted he would be in much trouble for it now, what with the Finkman lawsuit drama being water under the bridge. But Shannon was a current student, and there was a lot at stake by having read something about her that he wasn't supposed to. Even if he wasn't entirely worried about how something like this would effect how Shannon saw him, this has the potential to make him look pretty terrible to the rest of the school. Robot thought about his own manila folder in the 'J' section of the locked cabinet, and tried to shame himself by asking how he'd feel if someone broke in and walked off with _his_ files.

But it the truth was, Robot didn't care about his files. The massive manila folder in the cabinet, probably the biggest currently used by a student, was full of technical mumbo-jumbo, schematics, and instructions for how to deal with Robot's meltdowns-not that Madman had cared enough to notice that Robot's overseers hadn't just dropped a volatile machine in their laps without explanation for how to handle him. Nothing in that folder really mattered to him.

But his privacy did.

All his private things, his thoughts, hopes, dreams, the things he hated and the things he loved, were already exposed, in every data log entry he wrote. So Robot, of anybody, felt terrible at the prospect of breaching Shannon's privacy. He was grateful he was stopped before he'd read anymore.

 _But,_ he thought, looking down at the file in his shaking hands, _there's nothing stopping me now._

* * *

 _Originally Published February 27th, 2018_

 _Author's Note for the Story:_

I REALLY wanted to get this chapter out today, so it might have errors, which I apologize for. I tend to not be able to catch them until I've had time apart from it.

 _Whatever Happened to Robot Jones?_ © Greg Miller & Cartoon Network


	9. The Predecessor and the Successor

Not until that late afternoon, when his bedroom door was closed in front of him did Robot finally feel his circuits cool, his internal wiring unwind. And yet, his very first thought when he was all alone tinged with all the grimness of a church bell at a funeral.

 _I am in so much trouble._

He hesitated to open his chassis and pull out the now two student files that sat there, perfectly unharmed. And virtually still unread-all except for that little pink sheet that sat at the top of Shannon's other papers, of which Robot couldn't comprehend enough to feel that bad about it. For the whole day after the mission to get into Ms. Wilson's office, which Robot finally admitted to himself was a total failure to his objective, concerning Andy, Robot had been quiet and nervous. Socks, Mitch, and Cubey, thankfully, didn't seem to notice, not even when Robot had no reaction for Cubey's news of the new _Video Virtuoso_ , that would help gamers unlock new cheats in a variety of video games. He even got away with turning down their offer to hang at the arcade. ' _Still stuck on cracking that Andy case_ ,' Socks told the others. If only that were still true.

There was still a way to preserve Shannon's honor, if Robot somehow snuck in and replaced the files. But it would be unlikely that Ms. Wilson would be believing him or any student who tried to report to her about one of Madman's fits, and get her to leave her office, now. He could try to break in at night, but Madman would know of only one student who had the strength and who was technically equipped within his own body to break down a door, or simply break the lock. And even if he didn't, Madman was Madman. Did he really need more evidence than that to pin this on Robot Jones?

And what about the files themselves? Maybe Finkman's file was just gathering dust, but what about Shannon's? What if the reason it was turned sideways, Robot thought, slapping his face as it only then occurred to him, was that there were papers being _added_ to it? Every time a student got in trouble would warrant cracking open the file, wouldn't it?

Thankfully, at least at Polyneux, where detentions were dished out almost as often as pimples to unlucky students, they weren't bothered to be recorded. If Shannon got detention, likely for no reason but that everybody at Polyneux was due for regular detentions, it wouldn't require cracking open her file. Thank Goodness for Madman, in that respect alone. But that didn't mean Shannon's file wasn't set sideways for some other reason. Robot remembered the P.E. Pardon slip, wondering if that had anything to do with it. But that slip had to have been there since the start of Shannon's sixth year. And if the files were put together with the most recent paperwork on top, that would mean there was nothing new added to her file since she'd arrived. Still, like Finkman's, her file was surprisingly heavy, suggesting to Robot that she'd transferred in from elementary school with a lot of paperwork.

Robot groaned. It was all so simple, he could practically read the file without even looking at it. Someone might even argue that he could still literally read the file without ever cracking it open, via X-Ray vision, though his wasn't sophisticated enough to read individual pages, like in a book, or in this case, a manila folder. He couldn't command the ray to penetrate with such precision as to allow him to see each individual page in a closed tome. Robot knew, because he'd tried that before in an attempt to speed-read Mrs. Kavendash's horribly long history book. Once, he even tried to read one of the copies of the textbook on Mrs. Kavendash's book shelf when he was struggling with an exam. It had not worked, and the next test after that is when he began relying on the Scantron's cheat sheets. As far as anybody knew, he hadn't attempted to cheat before the Scantron came into play, and he planned on keeping that detail under the rug.

The only way he was going to be able to read this file was by opening it, and at that point, he'd have no one to blame for himself for what his eyes came across. He cursed himself. Why was he even considering this? Why did risk and moral reason cower in the face of the opportunity to learn more about this girl?

And then he remembered why: He was a data collector. A model of robot designed to be good for many things, but specifically for the want of taking in information. Every morning, he woke with a hunger for information, and he wasn't satisfied until he either got it from a book, or wrote it himself, from experience. Like his human counterparts, there was information input than was more enjoyable than others, such as comic books over textbooks-in Robot's case, history books were his least favorite. And that's why test day in Mrs. Kavendash's class was the only kind of test day he was truly unprepared for.

Robot's parents weren't very interested in history, either, least it relate back to technology. And they didn't try to force him to learn too much of it when feed him information was still their job. That's probably why Robot didn't care much for it himself.

But to learn anything about Shannon, to have this file sitting there in his hands, safe in his room where nobody would bother him, was like setting a box of donuts in front of their fat headmaster and leaving the room, door closed. To honestly hope that box to remain intact was pretty much hopeless. Madman was a glutton, and so was Robot, in their own ways. Weak, in their own ways.

 _Maybe I won't have the self control not to read this,_ Robot thought, determinedly, _but I can control_ when _I read it._ Opening his chassis again, he pulled out the files, and tapped his chin with his free hand. Eventually, he needed to make plans get these back into Ms. Wilson's office, but right now, he needed to find a place to hide these from his parents. And given how often they still decided to perform Robot's system check, hiding these on his person was not a good idea.

Mr. and Mrs. Jones knew of all the secret compartments, pull-out appliances, furniture, and even a few secret room to their own very unique house, except for the one that Robot had designed himself. Robot followed the wall to the right of his door, and opened up his closet. He shoved aside a lot of boxes, filled with humanoid objects, like the Wonder Cube and other toys, teen magazines he'd read and discarded, and mechanical parts to aid in his tinkering-a hobby he picked him from his father. He didn't know why he still kept a lot of this stuff, except that visiting Socks' house and seeing a human boys' room for the first time, drowning in dirty clothes, old toys, sports equipment, and posters, made his own room feel disturbingly barren. Robot then made it a mission to hang onto as many virtually worthless objects as he could. He even outfitted his room with more humanistic furniture, including a dresser, mirror, couch, and bed. And as long as his parents believed this was aiding to his human studies, they didn't seem to mind the clutter.

In comparison to the room itself, Robot's closet was shallow, and aside from the boxes on the floor that were now moved out of the way, there was only room for a small bar for hanging clothes. Not that this was a problem, since Robot didn't own too many articles of clothing. There were some shirts he'd picked up from promotions, a few dingy ones Socks had given him when he'd gotten too big for them (reluctant to hand them over to his little brother, 'the goof burger'), and some shorts. Aside from that there was a single, black tuxedo that was pressed and hanging neatly from the hanger farthest in the back-the only momento he had of the Harvest Dance his first year at Polyneux. That was probably the first real human outfit he'd ever needed to own, and he was surprised by how fondly the memory of his night next to Shannon was, even now. After everything that had happened since then, this should have been a painful memory for him. Yet Robot stopped and gazed at the suit fondly. It reminded him of a moment when he was sure he knew who Shannon was. Genuine. But that version of Shannon, the one at the dance seemed as distant as the memory now. He escaped the sentimental cloud hanging over his head and faced the wall across from the closet door.

To the naked human eye, there was nothing there but blank metal plating, but Robot could see the faint outline of a cut, in the shape of a curved rectangle only one foot long by a half tall. He was still impressed with the accuracy of the laser-made cut, but of course, he was a robot-he wasn't anything if not precise. Using his control over magnetic attraction, he pulled the handle-less rectangular cover out of the wall, revealing a large pocket in the wall's insolation and wires. Robot hadn't known what he was going to do with this space when he made it. He didn't have any physical secrets to hide, really-all his personal things were thoughts, and feelings, both of which were signed away to his parents in his Data logs. And he still resented this fact. And back to the idea that his parents had knowledge of what his ultimate gain from integrating with humans was, that they were withholding from him, he thought it didn't hurt that he held onto some secrets of his own. Hell, if anything, he had a right to do so.

He sure didn't give them any information about Shannon, either way. He made a point to never address her in the final drafts of his Data Log, even if he did refer to girls in the casual sense, sometimes. His parents would think any serious feelings he might think he had for a human girl were confused, and Grampz would call them blasphemous, at the very least. And at a worst case scenario, they would pull him out of school altogether, telling the overseers that his mind was becoming corrupted, or that he was thinking too much like a human.

Robots and humans flirting during youth wasn't an uncommon sight in society. Books and TV portrayed the idea fictitiously, and usually in an innocent light. Socks, Mitch, and Cubey used to tease Robot about his crush with the same note of playfulness, even. From what Robot understood, there also wasn't sort of law against robot and human relationships anywhere in the world-not yet anyways. But the idea that anything serious could come of an advanced-thinking robot and a human in a romantic light, anything like a marriage, for example, was where the silly idea became taboo. As conservative groups in society traditionally frowned upon interracial relationships, and those that were not conductive to reproduction, such as gays and lesbian relationships, so also did they frown upon the notion that robots should be anything more than productive members of society that serve _beneath_ humans, not alongside them. And they simply didn't believe it was possible for robots to love, or to be loved, not even by their own kind.

Robot knew the last half of that had to be false. He knew what love was. And he knew that robots were perfectly capable of being _in-_ love. One look at his parents reaffirmed that, every single day. Yet only so many people in society recognized a pair like his parents as a legitimate couple, a legitimate marriage. A robot and human being married didn't stand a chance. Robot wasn't afraid when his crush had first developed on Shannon, because there was always a voice in the back of his head telling him that this was an infatuation: brief, and overall, meaningless. But times like the Harvest Dance, when he truly saw glimpses of what a future with a human might look like, that he got worried. He wasn't supposed to think seriously about these things, but he kept doing it anyway. And these 'too serious' thoughts are what kept Robot going back to school in the early days.

Nobody could know about this. And that's why, up until now, what little Robot's parents knew of Shannon was that she was nothing more than another friend. But even that was a lie now, since they weren't even speaking to each other. That _he_ was not speaking to _her,_ anyway, he corrected himself. It was hard to appreciate that he was controlling the silence between them, after so long of it feeling he she controlled him.

Robot slipped Finkman's and Shannon's files into the still very empty space in the wall, replaced the cover, and shoved the boxes in front of it. The distance he put between himself and the files should help discourage peeks at them, too, he thought hopefully.

He had until eighth grade graduation as the absolute deadline that these files, particularly Shannon's, would be noticed as missing. _That was well over six months from now,_ he thought. Shannon wasn't a particular troublemaker, not when she wasn't getting caught up in the trouble that Robot and his friends found themselves in, like back during Halloween last year, and Robot couldn't see a reason for anyone to need to access her file until then. Maybe the files were safe with him for a while. Maybe he could find a way to stay out of trouble in this, even, though it was a lame hope.

At last, a non-Shannon related thought distracted him from his personal troubles. What about Finkman's file? He was a spy, a traitor-a criminal, if Robot ever exposed what he'd taken. But as to what files Finkman supposedly stolen, and where he was now, Robot didn't know. There was no way to look him up, to track him. Robot had been hoping something would come along to help incriminate him, but at this point, Robot's desire to put Finkman behind bars was more out of principle than seething rage. The worst part of the Finkman disaster was that nobody but Robot knew that he was anything more than an innocent foreign exchange student. Even Shannon. Robot couldn't tell Shannon what Finkman had owned up to doing, because she'd never believe him. To Shannon, it just looked like one robot trying to scare his successor out of town. _Bleh!_ Robot hated to think of Finkman as a 'successor.' Successor was a word his own father might use to think of him. Successor was term that Robot might even use to refer to his own child, one day. Successor was not a term you gave to a snake.

Would Finkman's file hold the clues Robot could use that would finally get himself served with justice? That would finally prove that Finkman was a liar, and prove to Shannon-

Robot paused, his heart sinking. What was the point? A lot of people had completely forgotten that Finkman was ever there. And while Shannon was unlikely to have forgotten, what with how upset she was at his departure, he did want to win her over anymore. He didn't want anything from her anymore, except maybe some answers, hence his shaking desire to read her file. Ever since the pain he felt from the day on the bus, when she'd made him feel so foolish, he'd told himself over and over again that this was an infatuation that had run its course, and it was time to end. It was time to grow up and stop pretending like they'd ever had anything that was going to last. Despite how much Robot hated the notion that machines couldn't love, there may have been a good reason robots and humans only casually flirted after all.

Robot reached up and began beating the sides of his head with his fists. _It's over. It's over. It's over. Let it be over!_ Maybe it would be easier if he could just throw himself into the arms of a robot girl, and begin thinking about a real future. But robot girls, and robots his age in general, were not common. And the few times when Robot had seen them, mostly in videos from other countries, they either didn't have consciousness, or hated human culture with contempt. Robot would not win them over with a closet full of human clothes, and a room full of human furniture. He surely wouldn't be able to confess that his first love was a human being herself.

Robot closed his closet door, leaned against it, and in the gentle hum of the home's heavy electrical flow, thought about what to do now. He sort of wished he didn't turn down the arcade trip. Maybe he could meet the guys there before they went home. But truthfully, he didn't feel like playing games today. He wanted to talk to someone about all this, about what was going on in his head. He wanted to talk about his own, real problems, not about how he was going to prove Andy Fields wasn't a ghost haunting the school.

His parents were out. It was that time of month again when both of Robot's parents had to be at the factory for a dull meeting-plans of the future of the company, and all that. There was only one person to talk to, and in all his years of wisdom, he was probably the best person to go to right now. Robot left his room and headed down two floors, to the basement, where his grandfather sat in the darkness, continuously gathering dust.

It had been a long time since Robot had talked with Grampz unit. Two months, actually, if Robot recorded the date right. The thought made him shudder, in the cool, darkness of the basement steps. How could it have been so long?

Grampz had been with the family for as long as Robot had existed. Before Robot began going to school, he visited Grampz Unit every single night, sometimes for chess and checkers, sometimes just to talk. Sometimes Robot patiently sat and listened Grampz unit tell him the same stories two or three times. Grampz remembered a lot, but he didn't bother to remember which stories he'd already told his grandson. The age difference between them, and the fact that Robot sometimes needed punch cards just to talk to him, didn't matter to Robot at the time. They were male, and they were two machines, and that made them connected. Then, when Robot began going to school, he made the attempt to see Grampz every night, but sometimes forgot. Grampz, being practically comatose in between visits, didn't mind the waits. He even kept his criticisms of humans to a minimum when Robot admitted he was going to go hang out with some of his classmates in the evenings, instead of spending it with Grampz.

Robot couldn't help all the time he spent with the guys. He'd never felt lonely for friends until he'd had them. He wanted to be with them all the time, at school and after. He didn't even care that they teased Robot in ways that Grampz never would. Their teasing gave Robot a thicker skin-so to speak: you couldn't give a metal boy a thicker skin than what he already had. And in retaliation, Robot found that he had even developed a sense of sarcasm that he'd never had before, either. Rock music and video games had helped define Robot to the point that he felt like he knew the person who looked back at him in the mirror.

And Grampz? Unfortunately, the result worked backwords for Grampz. Instead of feeling like Robot was a more defined individual, Robot's time with the humans was taking a very obvious toll on Grampz's ability to recognize his grandson. Robot knew that Alzheimer's was a disease that affected a human senior's ability to remember their life and their families, and that old robots faced a similar problem, albeit more technical. Robot had told himself that this is what was happening with Grampz: That the old computer was simply getting _too_ old, and that his forgetfulness, albeit annoying, was nothing Robot could control.

It wasn't until very recently that Robot began to come to terms with the idea he might be wrong about this. For all his life, Grampz had been old, but sharp. It wasn't until the time that Robot had began school, he realized, that Grampz had began malfunctioning, going on extended sleep sessions, and being overall unproductive-despite having always been a massive computer, he'd always been on, active, doing _something_. And it took longer and longer each time for Robot to remind him who he was. The slowly increasing guilt Robot felt over this helped him neglect his predecessor, sitting in the basement, more and more. And every time Robot visited Grampz, it was still pleasant, and Robot wondered why he didn't visit his grandfather more often. But then the guilt over Grampz's worsening condition would crawl back up to him, and Robot would stay away from Grampz all over again.

Of all Robot's family, Grampz was the most outspoken against the idea of sending his grandson on this 'mission' to integrate with humans at the school level. Robot sensed that his parents had not always loved the idea of sending their only son to a place where he was the only robot around, either, but for some reason, they put up with it. Robot wondered if his parents knew a truth about his mission that they had not only neglected to tell Robot about, but Grampz, as well. Grampz _was_ close to Robot, after all. If there was some greater truth to Robot's mission, than Grampz would tell him in a heartbeat. But not if he was as clueless as Robot.

And so far, talking about his efforts to get closer to humans only seemed to bother Grampz. If he didn't go off on a total rant on humanity, than Grampz just became very sullen at the talk of Robot's mission. One time, back in sixth grade, Grampz must have said something to Robot parents about the mission, because the little automaton woke in the middle of the night, finding them arguing. Robot stood at the top of the steps and watched them, hiding behind the door, so if they chanced to look up, they would not see him.

"Robot is not," Mom unit said, emphasizing every syllable, "Your friend. Your playmate. He was not made to serve you. He was made for this mission, and you will not interfere. Do you understand me?"

Grampz unit's wheels were spinning, proving that he'd heard Mom unit, but he didn't say anything for what felt like the longest time. Robot waited with agony at the tension that was hanging in the air. He'd never heard Mom and Grampz argue, not ever. And it was all about him.

At last, Grampz spoke: "Grampz unit will not interfere with Robot's mission. But Robot's mission has interfered with us."

Without any response to this, Mom unit made her way to the escalator-stairs that headed to the kitchen, and Robot ran back to his room, before she caught him listening.

Robot didn't know what to make of Grampz's complaint at the time. He knew that he'd been seeing less of his grandfather those days, but he didn't think there was any wrong with it. Grampz claimed to have friends, so they could keep him company, while Robot enjoyed some of his own friends. These same friends were what Grampz had claimed to have when he covered for Robot's house party last year.

It didn't occur to him until about a few months ago that Robot had never _seen_ these so-called 'friends' that Grampz spoke of. And in one of Robot's last visits to the basement, continuing a very prolonged game of chess, Robot asked Grampz why he didn't just start up a game with chess with one of his friends, so he wouldn't have to keep waiting on Robot to make the next move. Grampz took in his question, and they played for the next hour and a half without Grampz saying a single word except 'Bye' when Robot left.

Thus, Robot had his answer. These friends, any last one of them, either didn't exist anymore, or never had. Oh, did he feel stupid. Of course Grampz was so hesitant to let go of Robot. He wasn't only losing his successor to humans, but his only companion. Robot's parents were always working, but Robot had been a child, and free of obligations that would keep him from the retired, old computer. But once Robot was assigned his mission, those days were over. Robot would have to grow up, beginning the big journey that all units took, and the oldest Jones model was reaching the end of his.

That realization had driven Robot to put Grampz so far out of his mind that, now, it had been two months since he'd gone down to the basement. As if to shame him more, everything was coated in a file layer of dust. Mom unit didn't have time to clean everything, so sometimes she'd left the task of cleaning the basement to Robot, since he was the one who spent the most time down there. His time away from the basement really showed now. He wanted to clean everything up, to dust every last inch of that place before turning Grampz back on. Maybe the sight of a really clean basement, the way Robot used to get it done, would help Grampz remember him faster. Robot took a cloth to Grampz's body itself, wiping off as much dust and the tiny cobwebs in front and behind the big computer before he quit. He was tired, and he wanted to talk to Grampz _now._ Robot threw the dirty rag aside, and hit the 'on' switch on Grampz's right side. He paused and tapped his foot before he became aware of the flashing bulb opposite the switch-the old filament reboot bulb. The young robot sighed. Of course, Grampz was going to need a reboot. If his parents hadn't spoken to him in all that time, Grampz had been asleep for at least two months-not properly turned off at any time. At the rate Grampz's health was deteriorating, it was a miracle now every time he managed to wake again. Frustrated, but determined to see this visit through, Robot began the reboot procedure.

It took about as long as it usually did, Robot pushing, pulling, turning, cranking, and yanking all the knobs and buttons and dials until the gentle hum of the Jones' house was overtaken by the rising whir that soon became a deafening that was Grampz unit beginning to wake. Just as it became too loud to bear, Grampz's roar faded out, leaving a loud but tolerable mechanical hum, like a World War II battle tank waiting to roll out of a ditch.

Robot hadn't realized he'd muffled his hearing until he unpinched his hearing receptors. He'd forgotten how loud Grampz's reboot was. He'd _forgotten_ something about Grampz unit. The thought made Robot shudder, just as the thought that Grampz might someday not be able to ever remember who his grandson was made him shudder.

The keypads on Grampz's massive computer body began to flicker with different colors, like a disco dance floor, and two the massive tape wheels that sat on his face slowly began to turn, signaling that Grampz was definitely awake now.

It was at this point that the old computer would either demand to know who Robot was, or ask how was it that his grandson was doing. The former might even require Robot to dodge some lasers pointed at his head from the weary, old computer, so Robot sincerely hoped for his own weary sake that it was the latter.

Unfortunately for him, it was neither. "How long?"

Robot blinked, not understanding. "Pardon me, Grampz unit?"

"How long has it been?" Grampz went on, his ancient computer monotone bellowing out from all sides of his body, and coupled with his vague words, was like a Godly voice.

Robot just stared at him, not sure how to respond. Something was off. It was like Grampz was cut off in the middle of a conversation, and he was responding to something that Robot had asked over two months ago. This had happened sometimes when Robot was much younger and spent every night with Grampz. The old computer would fall asleep after Robot had kept him up very late, usually with personal questions, such as what was the first machine he'd ever tried to woo. When Robot would visit Grampz again the next evening, he was not greeted with a 'hello', but the word 'washing machine', and a very confused little Robot was left to try and remember what question this was the answer to.

But present-day Robot was sure that the last thing he'd said to Grampz two months ago, playing chess, was 'Goodnight,' and if not that, 'Checkmate!' And Robot was sure that Grampz had not even fallen asleep when Robot had left: he was watching the news on the old TV set kept in the basement and muttering about the ways the humans were abusing robots.

And then it hit Robot: Grampz was not respond to a question from two months ago. He was asking Robot how long the little automaton had kept his grandfather waiting.

Robot Jones briefly considered lying. Robots of Dad unit's age and younger all had some sort of mental clock, so that they were not only always on time, but in sync with each other-which was especially important when robots worked together on the factory floor. But Grampz was so old, and so cut off from the world, it might have been possible to lie to him about what date it was, and get away with it.

But for how long? Assuming Grampz had longer to live than the overseers estimated, how long could Robot keep track of lost weeks, months, maybe even years, in between each visit?

Robot sighed. Either way, to spare Grampz the heartache of learning of Robot's longest delay in visits yet would have been a disrespect to the old computer that had treated Robot so kindly. In his best mindset, Grampz would have told Robot that he'd wanted him to be honest with himself. If Robot ever had a grandson, he'd want the same of him.

"The last time I saw you," Robot said head tilted back so that he could see the very top of his wheels. He felt suddenly dwarfed, standing so close to the big, old computer now, in a way he'd never had. "Was August 9th. It is currently October 16th."

Some part of Grampz made a fizzle noise that sounded like a tight intake of air-Robot had lost track of what sounds Grampz made that were perfectly functional, and which were signs of a broken part. His wheels kept turning, and Robot did not react, because he knew Grampz sometimes took a while to respond.

Amazingly, not only did Grampz not need Robot to remind him who he was, but his responses were coming a lot faster than Robot thought they would. "Ah," the old computer said. "So Grampz unit can expect the evening news on at seven?"

"Uh, it's a Monday, Grampz unit," Robot corrected shyly. "The news only comes on on seven on Fridays."

"Interesting. Than why does my internal calendar refer to October the 16th as a Friday?"

If Robot could gulp, this is when it would have happened. "Uh, I meant to keep up which changing your calendar, like I used to..." he trailed off without meaning to. Robot used to do a bunch of little things that helped Grampz unit function, even in his semi-dependent state. One of the smaller tasks Robot was given was changing the physical calendar punch-cards that Grampz unit used to refer to the current date in the year. As Robot got older, these cards had to be special-made, just for Grampz, and Robot was proud to be the one to change them out at the start of every new-year.

But ever since starting Polyneux, and having his life weighed down with homework, Data Logs, and the pursuit of social acceptance, Robot had forgotten to do a lot of these little things for Grampz. His first year at Polyneux, during winter break, instead of waiting anxiously for the chance to be able to change Grampz's calendar card the very moment he woke up January 1st, Robot had forgotten about it. He'd only changed Grampz's calendar two weeks after, when Mom unit had gently reminded him to, and he'd felt really bad about making Grampz wait that long to know what year it was.

Now it was almost the end of October, and Robot was just realizing, again, that he had forgotten to change Grampz's calendar. The guilt hit Robot so hard that his lips began to wobble. "Grampz... I... I'm..."

"Grampz unit understands what has occurred," Grampz said to Robot. "Robot failed to change Grampz' unit's yearly calendar card, hence why the elder is unable to recall the correct day of the week."

Robot was without words. There was too much sorry within him at that moment that a simple apology didn't do it justice. Instead, all the tension he'd been feeling about his neglect for Grampz boiled over, and Robot threw himself at the old computer, arms outstretched.

Squeaking from a lack of oil, Grampz pushed open a previously closed panel, and from it, extended one of his arms-an enhancement from his original design-and wrapped it around Robot's tiny frame. Moisture collected beneath Robot's eye lenses, but did not turn black, and did not seep out between the cracks.

"Robot's mother's assertion stands to be correct," Grampz said at last, breaking the silence that had fallen between them. "Just as I am certain you perceived it as well as I did the night that she said it."

Robot gasped, pushing away from Grampz. "You knew I was there that night? At the top of the stairs?"

"Grampz was aware," the old computer affirmed. "And I denied the significance of her statement at the time. Yet it has become impossible to deny that your mother speaks truthfully and rightfully about you, little automaton."

Robot's eyes were drying, but he was giving Grampz a confused look. What exactly was Grampz trying to admit to?

Apparently, Grampz wasn't clueless about what Robot's confused silence meant, because he went on to explain: "Ever since the day that they brought you to me, since the day we met, Grampz unit has seen the future, and it has made me realize just how very long I have existed. I have seen wars, and I have seen peacetime. I have a seen many things, Robot. I am a data collector, just as you are, but I think I have seen just about enough. Which is why, when we moved, and I was put down here, I did not complain. Because I still had you," he said, cutting off then suddenly. If it were possible for Grampz unit to become chocked up, this might have been when it happened. "For the rest of my time."

Robot listened, but did not release Grampz after embracing him once more. He didn't need to hear any more. He was relieving in the mere fact that Grampz was still there. Still there, with Robot, holding him back, and talking to him.

 _He's still alive_ , Robot told himself. _He's still here._

Robot recalled moments in sitcom television shows when the grandmother if grandfather would complain that their grown children didn't call them enough, or when the grandparent tried to reel in their grandchildren with promises of candies and nickels. Those lines were put in for laughs, but they were surely based off of a real world problem. Why did it suddenly become so hard to approach Grampz? It wasn't that Robot was particularly afraid of death, or particularly worried for Grampz's eventual demise, he thought ashamedly. In truth, Robot didn't have a real excuse for his neglect of seeing Grampz. He just never made the time anymore. He had a new life, a life he could call his own now. His own responsibilities, and his own ideas about the human race.

And the longer he put it off, the harder it was to see him again. It was a constantly growing guilt that never relieved itself until Robot was back down there again, visiting. When he visited, Robot could believe that his time with the humans hadn't changed him. That he was still the naive young robot who only know of the humans from a careful distance, and were told they were untrustworthy.

The longer Robot stayed away from Grampz, however, the harder it was to deny it. Humans HAD changed Robot, if only in little ways, such as his higher usage of slang terms, and his ability to read into social situations, even a bit better than his parents now. And for the most part, Grampz didn't seem to judge. It was only in the trustworthiness of Robot's friends that Grampz frankly, and maybe a little rudely, told Robot that he was concerned about.

Robot remembered that he had come down there to talk to his grandfather about what might dismissively be summed up as 'girl problems', but he just couldn't. Not even if he slyly left out the part about Shannon being human. And he couldn't really vent about Finkman to Grampz without explaining what the girl was, and why she complicated everything so. He could incriminate Finkman, maybe Grampz even had the ability to connect to the internet to help Robot run an international search-Robot hadn't considered having someone help him track down Finkman to make him face justice. It was the right thing to do no matter what, Robot's logical brain told him. The police might even pat him on the back if he uncovered what files Finkman had stolen. But it didn't matter to Robot enough. Not without someone driving his passion. Not without Shannon to prove wrong.

 _If I can't tell him that Socks and Mitch and Cubey are true friends despite being human, what hope did I ever have to convince him that Shannon was a good choice, either? Why had I ever thought that she would ever love me like a human, that we would ever be anything? I am so foolis_ h, Robot thought. There was a new kind of ache in his chest, in respect for lost of his time and his innocence, Robot figured. As much as he wanted to tell Grampz all of what he was feeling, he was enjoying this, just letting Grampz hold him for a while. And he could almost imagine being a newly-built robot again, and not having these problems.

Before Robot ever had to choose between his family, and the human world that he had somehow grown attached to. Before he learned where he and Grampz stood: As the predecessor, and the successor.

* * *

 _Originally Published March 3rd, 2018_

 _Author's Note for the Story:_

I know there's going to be inconsistencies with this one. You know when you have to stop drawing or writing because life gets in the way? Then you come back to it and you're like "uh, what was I talking about? Crap I lost it." That was me, this entire chapter. Holy hell.

I still need to work on reducing the amount of rambling that goes on in these chapters. The next chapters will be more action-based and less about what's going on in Robot's head. I had to do a thing with Grampz eventually, and it just sort of seemed like a good time to talk about him, but once I started talking about him and Robot's dilemma, with Robot going to school and spending less time with Grampz, I just realized what an interesting relationship that is, too. You really understand why Grampz would resent humans.

If you spot any errors, let me know, otherwise I'm letting it rip.

 _Whatever Happened to Robot Jones?_ © Greg Miller & Cartoon Network


	10. The Game is On

Robot hadn't forgotten his objective to find the real identity of the supposed 'ghost' of Polyneux, but like Grampz sitting in the basement, Robot's new responsibilities had a way of eating up time for the things he actually cared about. It got to be Thursday at lunch period when Robot finally admitted to himself, and to his friends, that the case had grown cold again.

"I didn't know the case had ever gotten warm," Socks said, confused.

"It's just that all my leads have lead me nowhere," Robot said, tapping a basket of nuts and bolts with his fork. "If Steve was correct in that Andy could be from any school, I could be looking for years, in all different directions. The only name that stands out belongs to Allentown."

"Allentown?" said Socks, putting down his sandwich. "That's like fifty miles away!"

"Ever notice how 'lead' and 'lead' are spelled the same way?" Mitch asked the group suddenly.

"That's called a homophone," said Cubey, rolling his eyes.

"No, it isn't, it's a homograph!" Mitch roared back.

"If you know what it is, why did you bring it up?!" Cubey yelled back.

"Could either of you pretend," Robot broke in, with narrow eyes, "That you care for once about this?"

Cubey and Mitch exchanged knowing looks. They play-fought all the time, so Socks and Robot knew that they weren't actually angry at each other, especially not over an argument on grammar. In regards to Robot's question, they seemed to feel the same way. "Robot," Cubey said. "If you yourself said this thing is going nowhere, than you might as well give it up."

"Yeah, man," Mitch said. "The four of us will admit that Andy isn't a ghost if you just chill it with the investigation stuff. Are you really planning on carrying this on through graduation, bringing it to high school?"

Robot opened his mouth to reply, but paused. This wasn't the first time that Mitch had brought up graduation, and in regards to the other kids, Robot couldn't really care.

But in regards to himself, the thought was a bit unnerving. The reason being: He didn't know if he was going to go.

According to his parents, his mission was to study _junior_ high schoolers. Why would that stop just because his friends were finishing up and moving on? Robot himself might mentally age, like his parents, but that didn't change the mission that was set out before him. The only reason Robot would have for moving onto high school with Socks, Mitch, and Cubey, would be that his mission was deemed finished, or if he was needed for another mission. But wouldn't JNZ have built a separate robot if they had needed one to study _senior_ high schoolers?

Maybe they'd already had.

Robot hadn't noticed that he'd dropped his oil can until Cubey yelled. Once again, he snapped out of the void, and reached down with a stained towel he kept in his chassis to wipe up the floor, while Cubey wiped off his skates with napkins.

While he was down there, he became very aware of a particular girl's voice-not shy and lisped, like Shannon's, but confident. Convincing. He watched beneath the table as Pam Simon passed with another girl that Robot had never seen before. She was very small, with long a plaid skirt-probably from a previous school, although it didn't look like the Jagger Elementary school red that some sixth graders still wore, but a rich blue-over a white blouse. And when she turned to look Pam in the face, Robot noticed that she was fairly pretty, too. Maybe just a notch above the norm, for Polyneux girls, anyway-if he was grading on a Socks-Morton-grading scale.

Standing next to Pam, however, she was eclipsed, and not just because Pam was taller, and much wider, but it was like Pam's voice, no matter if it was buttery sweet or agitated, was the first thing anybody noticed within a certain circular perimeter around her. Pam's voice not only projected, but so did her confidence. If anybody else was within that perimeter, they were as good as invisible. Including Shannon. Robot remembered seeing her on his second day of school, standing next to Pam, and laughing alongside her when Pam pointed out the oddity that was Robot's computer voice. _That was the first time I ever heard Shannon laugh,_ Robot thought bitterly, _and it was directed at me._

That should have been the point when Robot gave up on Shannon for good. That he should have cast her off with the rest of the Polyneux girls as dishonest with their small, passing grins in the halls. But he didn't. There was something about Shannon's behavior when she was close to Pam that just struck him as coincidental. As much as she was her own person, free to act of her own will, her attitude towards Robot seemed to change when she and Pam had a great distance between each other. Robot even remembered that when Shannon had gone forth to dance with Robot at the Harvest Dance that first year, she hadn't gone there with anybody. Pam had not been there, for whatever reason.

There were a lot of things about middle school that Robot was still having trouble understanding, and Pam Simon was high on his list. Unlike most of the girls at Polyneux, aside from the notorious Valerie and Trina, Pam was the most bold-saying whatever was on her mind, whenever she felt like it. She was on the student council-treasurer, in fact-and now matter how many kids she talked about unkindly, they had an unwavering respect for her. At least, that's what it seemed to be, given that Pam had never been bullied by anybody, that Robot could see. And very, very few kids were free from that burden of middle school.

So unlike Shannon, whom Robot knew well because of his years spent obsessing over her, avoided as many clubs as she could, and now that she was off the cheer-leading squad, had no extracurricular activities to attribute to her student record. Not a particularly good thing for a student Robot knew dreamed of going to a prestigious high school, and then an Ivy League college someday. Neither she nor Pam had the grades that looked promising for those ambitions, but at least Pam had student council. At least Pam had leadership qualities-not that her student record would list her 'qualities' as outwardly berating anybody who was different. Which, Shannon was, despite whatever excuse Pam made for herself that the prosthetic-assisted girl wasn't.

It was the first time Robot had wondered how it was that Pam Simon and Shannon Westerburg ever became friends in the first place. When they were together, they seemed alike, but apart, they were like night and day. Dare he think it, Shannon was more like Shannon was she was alone, and not Pam's tall, awkward appendix.

But Shannon wasn't attached to Pam's hip today. Today, that honor when to this new girl, and one glimpse of her face told Robot that she was every bit as nervous for herself as Robot was for her. _At least Shannon_ has _the ability to stand up for herself, even though she rarely uses it,_ Robot thought. _I'm not sure if this one does._

"And I was wondering if you knew anything about Pre-calc," Pam said, sweetly. "Since you're, like, really smart and everything."

"Well, I did a little, but I'm not as good in it as I am with Algebra," the smaller girl said with a blush, but no smile.

"June, one look at you," Pam said, holding her tray with one hand and pressing a palm to her shoulder. "And I know I'm looking at the face of a genius."

To this, the other girl did not reply, but looked at the ground, embarrassed to be put on the spot, and yet not mentioning it.

 _So that's June Watts,_ Robot thought. _Of course, that's why my memory banks could not put a name to her face._  
 _  
_Pam lead her to the usual table where she sat with Stacey and the other girls that she usually kept within her gravitational field. Pam sat in the middle, with Stacey on the left end, but just before June put her tray down next to Pam, someone slammed their own tray down in that very spot.

"Pam! You would not believe it if you didn't see it!" exclaimed Shannon Westerburg, not caring to notice that her milk had splashed onto her sleeve. She was out of breath, and her tray's contents were a mess. It was as if she'd run through the lunch line.

June stood back, still holding her own tray in a way that said she wasn't going to speak up. Pam, however, did. "Wow, Shannon, rude much?"

Shannon spun around took in the small girl standing to the side. "Oh, I'm so sorry... eh... what was your name again?"

"June," she said meekly, but with her eyes intensely focused on Shannon's.

"Right, I'm sorry, it's just that I really need to tell Pam about this:" Shannon spun around to her friend. "Did you know that Jamie Martin is running for student council?"

"Yeah, the twerp's been blabbing about that to everything that breathes for months," Pam said with a shrug. "So what?"

"Did you know he's running for treasurer?" Shannon asked with a raised eyebrow.

Pam was holding her milk for a sip, but then slammed it back down. The other girls at the table now stopped their own conversations to listen in on this, too. "What did you just say?"

Shannon slid herself into the seat that June was supposed to have had, and used her hands to gesture as she talked. "Well, Nicole told Brenda who told Betty Dingo-not Betty Patel-that her boyfriend Brian told his brother Kyle who told Matt-Symonds, not Hernandez-who told me that Jamie's dad was a banker, and he thought he knew more about money than you did."

Pam's sweetness drained from her face to the point where she was all fury. "That little snot! I'm going to shove his aqua colored pants where the sun don't shine." She pounded her fist into her other palm, but remained seated. "Continue what you heard, please."

Robot blinked with confusion. Jamie Martin? On student council? Despite a minor growth spurt last summer, he was still one of the smallest boys at Polyneux, and by far, still the meekest. Besides Robot, he was the only boy who got assigned Home Ec. the spring of sixth grade, (technically speaking, the _only_ boy, since Robot was supposed to really be in video game design), and he was unashamed about it, despite all the bullying he faced on a daily basis. And even though all that torment should have given Jamie a 'thicker skin', borrowing a term Coach used, it just didn't. And Robot couldn't see Jamie being a leader, even if it wasn't just treasurer. He didn't have Pam's fierceness. Or her hallway respect.  
 _  
Although he does have one thing that Pam doesn't_ , Robot thought. Jamie Martin was a people-pleaser, through and through. Bullying hadn't made him resentful and shy around other people. In fact, his demeaner was honest, and overall, kind. Something Robot used to think were valuable qualities in a leader. But as previous Data Logs had stated, he wasn't so sure humans agreed, picking fierce talkers and particularly attractive people instead of those who cared about others.

One of the other girls made room on the side of the table across from Pam to let June sit, and June nodded a thank you to them. She began picking at her lunch, but when she looked up, it wasn't at Pam, who was now rambling revenge plots against poor Jamie, but at Shannon. Likewise, Shannon took advantage of a moment of Pam not looking at her too look at June, and she winked. And June winked back at her, a smile creeping onto her face for the first time since Robot had ever seen her.

Robot didn't have to spend time among humans for very long to understand what a wink meant. And he couldn't believe it took that tiny gesture for him to understand what was happening-at least what he thought was happening. Did he just imagine what he saw?

"Dude, Robot, did you die under there?"

Robot whipped his head around and saw Socks, leaning down to see his mechanical companion still sitting on the floor. Robot hadn't realized that in watching the girls, he'd completely forgotten time, kneeling beneath the table.

"Oh, sorry," Robot said, cleaning up the last of the oil spill with the rag around the corners of the table leg.

Socks pulled his legs out from the bench and crouched down to join Robot from the other side, not caring who saw. "Still watching, her, huh?"

"Huh?"

Socks motioned for the table with the girls, and Robot realized he was talking about Shannon. Robot didn't know how to explain what his thoughts were, so he let Socks assume just that.

"Look, I don't know how long it takes for robots to get over girls," Socks said with a shrug, "But trust me, it'll pass. That's what my dad told me the first time a girl ripped me up."

Robot smiled. "Thank you, Socks." That was probably the closest thing to solace that he'd gotten since Robot had given up on Shannon. He remembered how badly he'd wanted to tell Grampz his troubles and not be able to, but Socks knew everything about Robot. Socks was also the only one of the three boys who was not too proud to admit the idea that boys could suffer such a thing as heartbreak-although he was nowhere as dramatic about it as Steve-hence why he was able to talk to Robot about this now.

But when he looked at Socks, the hatchling inside Robot began to screech again, its little wings flapping in the shards of egg from which it was birthed. Robot wanted to be consoled, but to be consoled by Socks made him the tiniest bit wary. Wouldn't it benefit somebody who wanted to get with Shannon for Robot to get over his feelings for her faster? Robot didn't want to feel this suspicion about Socks, but the automaton was learning one of life's complexities: that even the people that he liked the most in the entire world had their own flaws, differing opinions, and their own motivations.

Unfortunately, Socks had noticed Robot's smile fall, even though Robot hadn't registered that it had happened. "Are you going to be OK? For real."

Even if Sock's question came from honest concern, Robot did not have an honest answer to give back to him, so he just nodded at the human.

The bell rang, signaling the end of the period, and Socks, Mitch and Cubey said quick goodbyes before going their separate ways. Robot hung back just to watch Pam's table break up, and in her preoccupation over little innocent Jamie Martin threatening to take her position on council, didn't notice June leaving the lunch room by Shannon's side.

Robot wouldn't believe it if his eyes weren't beholding it. He wasn't imagining what he saw! Shannon was using herself as a buffer between Pam and June, this new girl who looked so shy and so vulnerable to Pam's control.

This was quite a surprising move from Shannon, who Robot had gotten so used to seeing resume the form of a doormat for Pam. And the underhandedness of it was not only impressive, but somehow annoying to Robot. Why did it take this long to see Shannon do _anything_ to undermind Pam.

And then Robot thought of Socks, and he wondered with a suspicious gaze if Socks was as good of a motivational coach to girls as he was with other boys...

* * *

That evening, Robot had yet another distraction. When he arrived home from school, the JNZ van sat parked out of the house, and Dad unit was carrying boxes from the back to the front door.

Just the sight of it made Robot groan. He knew what this meant, even before Dad unit called out to him. "Factory clean-out! Must sort, must salvage, must document!"

"Today?" Robot asked, his one blue history textbook suddenly feeling heavy in his hands. "But I have so much homework!"

"I will help you," Dad unit said, the ends of his mouth curled into an overly-eager smile that his son had come to dread. "Once we finish."

Robot sighed, stuffed the book inside his chassis, and then started for the back of the van, to help unload. Of course he had been lying-Robot tore through homework like a hot knife through butter, save for history-but he'd been hoping Dad unit would not require his assistance this time. Once all the boxes were inside the house, Mr. Jones shut up the back of the van and instructed Robot to carry them upstairs to the storage room, even though Robot knew the drill by now.

Even when they had lived at the factory, Robot's family was given the task of going through all the factory supplies and scraps. It wasn't a relatively green facility, but the engineers did reuse a lot of broken parts and scrapped metal for their newer units. Sort of like paying a debt to the factory that had made them, JNZ models were expected to help out with the factory in as many little ways as possible, not always being paid for these smaller tasks. As if their closeness to the factory's initial owner, Harris Jones, made them the most trustworthy units to be assigned this task, Robot's mother and father were given this particular job of sorting through all the parts and trying to find things that could be re-purposed. For as long as Robot had been around to help with this job, he'd found it to be pretty fruitless. A metal had to be a very specific kind and in tact in a way that made it useful for re-purposing. The vast majority of it wound up back into the foundry.

Robot mentioned this to his mother, when she'd stopped her usual chores to come over and help them. Even though Dad unit loved the idea of re-purposing parts, she at least shared Robot's annoyance with the tedium of the task.

"I don't understand why they can't get other units to go through this stuff," Robot told her. "It's not like these things are particularly valuable-like this:"

He pulled out of one of the boxes a pair of identical toy robots that were welded together at the shoulders. One had a cloth tie around the neck, the other a pink bow on its head. Their chests each had a glass window, and behind that, identical red hearts blown up to a ridiculous size. When Robot twisted the arm of the assumed husband of the pair of robots, the two's eyes lit up, and a male and female computer voice harmonized:

 _"Thank you for choosing Jones'-Nathan's-and-Zamboni's Robotics: Where the machines are forged with love."_

 _Yuck._

Robot knew of just a person who would write that garbage. And he was sitting in the CEO's chair just this very minute. Before Marvin Claymore became head of the company, JNZ Robotics had been an upcoming company that approached everything with a sense of practicality-it showed in the lack of ornamentation on the red-brick building itself, and the very practical designs of the robots themselves. Robot rubbed his bulb, thinking about how ridiculous Finkman looked, with that big silver balloon on his head that was supposed to represent hair.

While Marvin Claymore embraced the more simplistic designs of the robots themselves, the toy in Robot's hands was a sign of Marvin's supposedly forward thinking: It was one of about fifty toys made as a gift for large companies, when they signed JNZ onto a particularly big contract. When they did, Marvin sent the CEO of that company one of these things, as a sort of token of thanks for the millions of dollars that they were paying for JNZ to design their work-bots. While it was more impressive than some dinky key chain, Robot didn't see much of a difference. It was an unnecessary, insincere gesture of thanks. It was stupid.

"You should be grateful that they entrust us with this task," said Mom unit. "It is an honor."

Robot barely kept from rolling his eyes. He expected as much from her-ever as strict as she was. But something about her voice was key in hinting that she was as annoyed as he was about it. Maybe _Dad_ unit honestly believed that it was an honor, but she didn't.

When Robot was younger, he kept these observations about the differences between his parents, particularly their differing opinions, to himself. But now that he was older, there were times when he had the desire to point it out to them. Even though it was yet another unsettling fact about growing up, something about knowing how his parents stood apart as individuals, unlike this two-headed robot toy, was satisfying.

When his father left the room to grab an empty box from the basement for sorting, Robot took the opportunity. "Mom unit, why do you jump in to help dad with these tasks if you honestly hate them as much as I do?"

Mrs. Jones was rising after picking up a sheet of broken plastic from a box, and froze upon hearing Robot's question, the bulbs on the side of her head blinking. "Your father is a steadfast loyalist to the company, Robot. He doesn't turn down any work that they give him, pay or no pay. And I..." she paused, apparently mulling over proper wording, "... I do not wish to hinder his spirit. I admire his work ethic, and while I don't entirely agree with everything the factory does, I do support my husband."

"That doesn't make any sense," Robot complained.

"It will make sense to you someday, Robot. When you're older and married." With both her pumps, she moved one of the boxes to the other side of the room, sealed with the label "reusable plastics" on it. Robot grimaced at the thought of being older. Being 'uncool', and especially if it meant doing whatever his spouse wanted, to make them happy.

"While we're on the topic," Mom unit said, standing erect again. Robot heard the squeal of her joints. That was new. Mom unit usually never had trouble bending forward and bending back up. A new sign of age. "There's something I've been meaning to tell you about, and I suppose it is now or never. Tomorrow night, the company is hosting a meeting, and attendance is mandatory, so I'm afraid you are going to have to cancel any plans you have made with your friends."

Robot looked up at her. "Mandatory? For me?" Robot's parents were constantly called in for meetings, but he himself was never needed. Robot had only ever been to one formal meeting a long time ago, when he was much younger. He'd begged to go, just to see what it was like, only to find out it was dry and long, with monotone humans spouting off boring words. Robot even fell asleep halfway through it, Mr. Jones being upset that he had to carry Robot home halfway through it. In hindsight, considering how much Robot loved any sort of mathematical or scientific data input, that the business meeting was boring for Robot was really saying something.

"Well, not exactly a meeting," Mrs. Jones corrected herself. "More like... an assembly. Every worker is expected to be there, including your father, but they've also requested all the Jones models to be in attendance, and that means you, too."

Robot thought this over, but it still sounded odd. "Won't the factory be closed at night?"

"It's a formal assembly," Mrs. Jones said, more confidently now. "They don't host them often, but I feel like it is something that Marvin Claymore will be doing more of, now that he's the CEO. Which is the other thing I meant to inform you about: Do you recall that your father and I acquired a tuxedo for you about two years ago? I would prefer if you wear it tomorrow night as well."

Robot stopped working altogether. An assembly? A suit? All JNZ models were going to be there? It was getting weirder with the more details his mother told of this thing.

"I meant to give you more notice, but I thought-"

"It's alright, Mom unit," Robot interrupted, feeling weary. "Just tell me at what time tomorrow I should be ready."

Mrs. Jones gave Robot the time that another van from JNZ Robotics-not the one the family itself owned-was going to arrive to pick Robot up from the house. Apparently, Mom unit was going to be at the factory all day with Robot's father, and would be unable to pick up Robot herself.

All of this was very peculiar to Robot. He couldn't think of another time when the factory made an event seem so... well, important. But if Robot knew any better, it was not letting formality blind him to real intentions. JNZ had changed, but he would not.

Just as he was finishing up his sorting work that night, he picked up the robot-couple toy again and put it on top of his dresser, to remind him.

* * *

That day at JNZ Robotics had been a fairly typical one. So much so that nobody noticed that the factory had guests among then.

Even when the workmen went home and the live-in workbots went to their living quarters, hidden deep in the factory, their sensors had cuirously not picked up the presence of outsiders.

Or that one of them desperately did not want to be there.

It was a hard job, trying to conceal someone into a bustling building, so that nobody would find them, but it was very crucial that she was not seen until tomorrow night. Logically, picking the most far off, tiny closet in the factory, behind a rarely used office, was the best pick. The manager's office just above the main work floor was too obvious-that was, if anybody had any idea that their guests had arrived early from their long trip.

She decided to wait until 11pm, two hours after all sound had ceased on her floor, and the ones above and below, before leaving her tiny room, next to a mop and a broom, and used a huge navy dust cover used for what she suspect was a printer as a cloak.

The halls up here, in the upper offices, were almost pitch black, with the only light coming from two big windows on either ends. They were the only thing that made the hall visible to the naked human eye. Thankfully, this escapee did not have to rely on those things. She could see perfectly fine. She was just hoping anybody patrolling the floor at this hour would not have that. Even the floors were carpeted to muffle her footsteps. She was a little phantom in the night.

The first staircase she went down lead to a pair of doors at the bottom that were locked. She reached out, her hand covered by the cloth of the dust cover, and broke off the metal handle with mere strength, wincing as the parts clattered to the floor and broke the spell of the silence, then pushed open the doors and continued on. She had no map of this factory, so she relied on logic of basic floor plans to find her her exit, but the path was full of dead ends. This humongous place was like a maze to outsiders. She wondered how new workers ever mastered it.

Eventually, somehow, she found the ground floor. This one was not only more expansive, even in the office wing of the building, but had more windows and therefore made everything easier to see. Including herself, which hightented her paranoia. But at least she could tell she was halfway there. When she made it to the work-floor, the carpet wasn't present here, so she could hear every single one of her tiny footsteps, like a cane hitting the floor. She shuttered.

The main door of a robotic's facility was going to have a night guard, but the back door-if she could just break off the lock-

She froze. In the shadow of the overhang, a huge automaton was sitting right there, next to the back exit. It must have been a stationary unit, not having any living quarters of its own. She knew it was asleep because it did not seem to see her, standing there, a dark figure in the middle of a gray tiled floor. She didn't dare take another step forward, didn't know if it could be awakened by the spiky sound of her footsteps.

Carefully, she shifted the dust cover beneath her feet, at the expense of exposing a bit of her head. The moon shone through the windows and created a massive shine spot on the top, but she thought it was more important with a machine that was in sleep mode. rather than not see her. The cloth cushioned her footsteps so that they were silent again, but it took her three times as long to walk and not fall over herself. It was worth it, as the huge, red automaton with its long arm could probably crush her to death if it chanced to wake. Instead, it continued to hum in its sleep mode, and she reached the door unnoticed.

She couldn't make any noise this time around. Instead, she pressed her covered hand to the key hole, concentrated very hard, and willed the pins in the lock to be pushed back, using electro-magnetism as a key in itself. She didn't need to know the exact form that the real key took in order to operate, she could feel them obeying her, inching back into their hold, one, and then another, and then another, the industrial lock not fighting her.

And then there was a click. The door shuddered beneath her palm. She would be amazed by her own work of wonder if she hadn't done this so many times before. She pushed it, and then she was outside. She shifted the cover so that the moon's shine did not touch her again, and felt a moment of nirvana as the icy October night gusts wrapped themselves around her, billowing the dust cover. They exposed her feet and made her body even colder than it already was, but she didn't care. She was free.

She trailed up to the top of the grassy hill, with a wire fence-the only thing separating them from the glinting city below. All she had to do was climb this fence, and she could claim her independence. She didn't care that she didn't know anything or anyplace about this city, this county, this state. She would find somebody, some robots that would understand her plight, and they would show her how to be a free roaming unit, and maybe someday, she would help others do the same.

She had only touched her bare, clear, glass palm to the fence, her fingers curling around the wires, when that familiar voice shattered all of her dreams all at once. "What are you doing?"

She knew that voice, and froze again. The sickeningly butter tone that she knew too well to mean that she was in a lot of trouble. She turned, hand still pressed to the fence, and beheld the silhouette of a tall woman with dark, shoulder length hair. Her face was unreadable in the dark side of the moon, which made her all the more threatening.

 _How? How had she known?_

"A night time stroll?" the woman asked, and even though the unit couldn't see it, she could tell that the woman was smiling. "Fancy how we think the same."

 _No. No, we do no not._

"I was only in need of some fresh air, Miss Donna," the unit explained, her girlish voice so human-like that anybody who heard it might mistake it for an actual human.

The unit used her robotic vision to see her mistress's face better. The red-lipped grin was indeed there, but it was faltering more and more by the second.

"Really?" the woman called Donna said with mock surprise. "Humor me this, Crystal," she said, as she took a few steps closer. Like the robot, she walked on heels, hers a deep purple, and she had an unaffected stride, even on the grassy, bumpy hill. When she was close enough, the short robot felt eclipsed in her shadow, and she bent forward so that all she could see was the human's face, lined with anger. "What creature that doesn't breathe needs fresh air?"

She dared not to speak. These was an unanswerable question, she knew. But inside, her thought processes were still functioning. This wasn't an impossible riddle. Like her, it was very clear: _The kind that feels suffocated_ , Crystal answered silently.

Somehow, despite her fear, Crystal managed to word a question: "How did you know?"

Without warning, Donna reached out and grasped Crystal by the shoulders, the dust cover falling away slightly, so that her head was once again exposed in the moonlight. The shine of the bright white orb in space on her glass skin like a mockery of what she was. "If you make a fool of me tomorrow night, or if I ever hear from Claymore that you are a troublemaker, you are going to regret it. You're just lucky that you decided to pull this idiotic trick when I still had control over you. I don't know what that man does to his robots, but I can guarantee that he isn't as kind as I am."

Crystal nodded, though inside, she knew that the human was stretching the truth. For as callous as she'd ever known humans to be, she couldn't imagine that Claymore, or anyone, was as horrible as her own mistress was.

"I don't think you understand how lucky you are," Donna went on, and once again, her voice became buttery and pleasant. Almost motherly. "You are a very special unit, Crystal-an incredibly successful prototype. A hundred robots would cut off their right arm just to be as unique and privileged as you. And your existence is going to bring about much joy to your own kind, so if you think you are doing yourself any favors by toying with the idea of independence," her voice curled menacingly around that word alone, "You best forget it."

Crystal unit looked from her mistress, to her own hands, sticking out of the dust cover. So clear, she could see the lines in the grass below, with the smallest amount of distortion. These hands shouldn't exist. _She_ shouldn't exist. She was a girl of glass that was as strong as metal. She was a mockery of science, of common sense. And yet, she was standing there, contemplating all of it.

It was then, in the silenced that followed Donna's statement, that a very dark thought seeped into Crystal's computer mind. For the first time in all her existence, she thought: _I could destroy this woman. I am perfectly capable of getting rid of her. I know I am strong enough._ But she knew she couldn't-that she wouldn't, rather. Robots may have been perfectly disposable to humans, but Crytal didn't feel that treating humans as equally disposable was the answer to the problem. This weakness would never get her in good with the robots of the streets, the ones that lived in back alleys and gathered and talked about the eventual fall of the human race.

And a heartbreaking thought finally occurred: _Maybe I don't belong to them._ Despite all the hate that was building up inside of her, she would never hurt a human. Not on purpose, anyway.

 _I am too fragile for that._

More silence passed, only the wind howling to break up the space between them, before Crystal finally outstretched her hand to her mistress, shimmering as the city lights from below touched it.

"That's right," Donna cooed. "That's right," she said, taking Crystal's hand in her own, as delicate as a mother. "Good robot."

With her free hand, the shebot reached up to remove the dust cover from her head, but the woman took her hand in hers, and gently pulled it back down. "No, no, keep it on. Just in case someone sees."

Crystal grimaced at her touch, but she was partly thankful. She was tired of always being covered up, but she didn't particularly want to be seen. By this time tomorrow, she'd never need to be concealed like this again, whether she wanted to be or not.

She followed the human who still had command over her back down the hill, to the factory sitting on a flat patch of land between it and another hill. This night had been her last chance to get away before the public knew of her existence, to carve a life for herself that wasn't laid out before her, and it had slipped through her transparent fingers.

The game was on, and she would just have to play it well.

* * *

 _Originally Published March 6th, 2018_

 _Author's Note for the Story:_

This chapter came out really quick, and it looks decent enough to post, so let's just keep chugging.

Yes, there are a lot of subplots at this point, but I swear they're all going somewhere.

 _Whatever Happened to Robot Jones?_ © Greg Miller & Cartoon Network


	11. The Gala (Part 1)

"Grampz unit? It is me, Robot. I am home from school, and I have come to inform you that I will be leaving again shortly. I know I promised during my last visit to come play a game with you tonight, but it seems there is some sort of event going on at the factory, and my presence, as well as Mom and Dad Unit's, are required. I'm not sure if they told you anything about it, but I can't help but feel suspicious. I've never known an event at the factory that required formal wear. I wish you were feeling well enough to be transported with us tonight. Grampz? Grampz unit? Are you in there?"

Robot shouted into the old fashioned horn that was attached to Grampz's hearing receptor, but the old computer did not stir. Grampz sat silent with his lights blinking, which should have confirmed that he was awake, but it could have been one of the various malfunctions he was experiencing nowadays. Lately, Robot couldn't tell if Grampz was harder to wake because of his age, or if he simply didn't want to be woken up. Given that the screens stitched into the walls of his body were on standby, it almost seemed like Grampz was ignoring him, and given the extended periods that happened in between their conversations lately, Robot didn't even blame him. If that's what indeed he was doing, that is.

" _Forget_ it," Robot sighed, half tired and half frustrated, slamming the lid shut on Grampz's hearing amplifier. His voice echoed as the amplifier's horn traveled down the old pipe, making Robot's normally quiet voice loud enough to overwhelm the constant rumble of Grampz's body in the cold, sealed basement, and the old machine was still unresponsive. If he was comatose, there was nothing Robot could do. If he was playing games with Robot, well, he could forget his grandson coming down to tell him about his daily events more often.

That afternoon, just as his mother had instructed, Robot came straight home from school. He finished his homework in half the time it took normal students to do, and removed his tuxedo from the closet. But before he put it on, he went to see Grampz unit to ask what he knew, if anything, about tonight's proceedings. But seeing as he wasn't going to be getting anything out of Grampz today, Robot stormed back up the stairs to face the task of actually putting the tux on.

Part of him worried about the lingering odor the clothes might carry, it having been what he wore the night that his exhaust pipe malfunctioned at its worst, but because he didn't have a nose, he had no way of knowing. He held it up to a cold fan for a while, just in case.

On its hanger, the bow was still surprisingly starchy, the shirt white as clouds. He'd only ever worn this suit once, only ever once needed to do so. To dress up excessively was to conform to a human expectation, and he felt conflicted in doing so.

It wasn't easy the first time, trying to fit his boxy frame into those pants and that jacket, and it wasn't a lick easier to do it the second time. If Robot ever wore clothes, they were looser, specifically for this reason. But a tuxedo didn't look good if it was baggy. It had to be form-fitting. So he gave himself thirty minutes before he would be picked up to get himself into the tux. He refused his mother's offer help the first time, when he wore this to the harvest dance, and he was glad, because at least he knew he could do it this time without ripping a hole somewhere.

With the flaps of the shirt aligned perfectly to the center of his neck, the last thing was put on the bow-tie. Being a robot, this was actually the easiest thing to do, his mind perfectly memorizing the motion, even though he'd only done this a couple of times. But as soon as he looked at himself in the mirror, a wave of disgust rolled over him. He looked exactly as he did the night of the Harvest Dance, as if the two years since that night never happened. The curse of a robot was the inability to physically age, save for broken or worn parts, and Robot had learned this the hard way, with his failed experimentation with growth spurts. After that, Robot had grown to tolerate the knowledge that he was never going to physically change, and until that night, he hadn't really thought about it much again.

But a lot had changed about Robot since the Harvest Dance. He'd grown in ways that couldn't be expressed by natural physical change. By not looking any different than how he looked two years ago was like a slap across the face to everything that he'd experienced since. And he resented it now more than ever.

Ripping the bow-tie off, and not having a proper replacement, Robot decided to go sans-tie entirely. His mother had been clear about the tuxedo, but not about the tie itself. It was a tiny victory against things that Robot could not control, one tiny detail that indicated that he was not the same stupid little robot that walked into Polyneux Junior High School two years ago, and he wasn't going to be taken advantage of in the same way.

The robot without the bow-tie would not base his entire world of happiness on the mutual affection of a human girl. Not again.

The van that was supposed to pick Robot up arrived at the exact minute it was supposed to-driven by robot JNZ workers, it was to be expected. Robot was late in arriving outside, only because he'd grown comfortable at the human idea of being 'fashionably late', at least by a few minutes. It was still surprising how difficult it was for Robot to get used to the ways of both peoples, remembering how robots behaved and treated certain scenarios after becoming so accustom to ways that humans did things. One thing meant something else to the other, and going back and doing things the robot way was like calling to a culture that Robot felt separated from again. He contemplated these thoughts as he was driven to the factory.

His drivers were a couple of middle aged robots who Dad unit knew. They were friendly enough to Robot, and drove just as erratically as his father did, but didn't try to force robot into deep conversation, and he appreciated that. They did, however, joke with each other in such slow, dry humor that Robot wanted to throw himself out the window a number of times. How had this become so alien to him?

When they arrived outside JNZ Robotics, the sky was already setting to a deep red that complimented the plain red bricks quite nicely. Robot briefly admired the sky before letting his driver-slash-chaperones guide him to the line for the door, and then left him on his own. They were on-duty tonight, and dropping Robot off was just one of the many jobs they'd been given.

Robot was most surprised at the fact that there was a line to get in. At the door, a man and a robot, both equally six feet tall, ran portable weapon detectors along the lengths of every patron, employee or not. On the robots, they went off quite often-as one would expect of metal detectors on robots-but both robots and humans waiting in line looked as if it was only a matter of time before that happened, and chattered as they waited for the robot to be searched.

It only occurred to Robot as he was next in line how everybody else was dressed. He himself had stood out as the most overdressed at the Harvest Dance two years ago, both he and his parents not knowing what to expect, but here, he fit right in. Every woman was in some sort of gown, every man in a suit, including the workmen off duty who showed their badges at the door to prove who they were, and the robots...

The robots. Robot had never seen so many of his own kind dressed up. Any bot who could fit into a gown or a suit was sporting one. Some even had hats and canes, and some definitely looking more ridiculous than others. It was like one of those award shows on TV, but for every human present, there was a robot. And because these were workmen and their families and robot workers and _their_ families, everybody was talking with each other. It was like the cultural divide, the very verbal differences they had that normally made their conversations awkward didn't exist. There was no animus between them. Everybody was happy, and everybody made each other feel like they were equally welcome here.

 _If only school was like this,_ Robot thought. Integrating would have been so much easier.

As he reached the door, a pink headed shebot, same color as his mother, but quite different otherwise, swiveled her head in Robot's direction. "I dare say that I do not believe what my sensors are telling me," she said, breaking off a conversation with the guard, "Is that little Robot Jones I behold?"

Robot grimaced, having attention called to him. "Hello, Voice-Recog-natron."

Now everybody was looking at him, and he felt himself shrink. When he approached the shebot, and the guard who was checking for weapons, he wasn't even checked, the guard holding up his metal detector and smiling at him. "Not necessary for you, son. We know who you are."

 _They know who I am._ Robot thought, blushing. It had been years since robot lived at the factory. He'd forgotten how he was treated, here. So unlike school. So unlike the rest of his life.

"I have not heard that voice in over thirty six months!" Voice-Recog-natron said. She swept up Robot into a hug that surprised him, Robot's eyes bulging out of his skull. A robot's hug was a death grip.

Voice-Recog-natron was the guard who kept watch over the door during regular work hours, and like her name suggested, allowed workmen and bots in via voice recognition. She had been there for as long as Robot could remember, a buy-off from another company that had fallen apart when the plant was still young, and always, always in a sickeningly good mood. And like a few of the robots who worked there, doted a bit too much on Mrs. Jones' little son. Robot had not expected to see her, but it was dawning on him quickly how many familiar faces he was going to see tonight.

The workman on duty who was checking for weapons handed Robot a laminated card.

"What is this for?" Robot asked.

The workman's smile fell, and smacked his metal detector, which was starting to whine as it become overwhelmed next to so many metallic entities. "Consider it a backstage pass of sorts. Your parents are expecting you on the main work floor-that's where everyone is meeting."

Robot was a bit confused, holding the card out before him, but he didn't say anything as he left the entrance to allow the guards to check more people inside.

Robot had thought he knew when the factory was loud, having spent the majority of his years there, and visited plenty of time during work ours even after the Jones' had moved to the suburbs, but he wasn't prepared for the roar of noise that assaulted at his ears when he entered the building. The lobby was filled with people, some of which were families of workmen and investors who hadn't seen each other since the last big celebration JNZ had held, and that was way back when Marvin Claymore had been named the new CEO. It was like walking into Polyneux on his first day to the third power. His sensors were overloaded with all the commotion, all the sights, all the outfits of the robots and the chitchat between the two species that he'd so rarely ever seen.

He looked at the laminated card in his claws, white as his shirt and displaying the big generic blue words "VIP" on the front. But scribbled on the back, Robot noticed as he turned it over, was a handwritten note that looked as it had been added at the last minute before the card was laminated:

 _Jones Robotics, first class._

Why did he need a VIP card in the factory that he practically called his second home? Robot knew this place like the back of his claws, which was actually saying something, considering how many people got lost here. He wanted now more than anything to find his parents and start unloaded a lot of questions, listeners being around or not.

But a heavy hand came to rest on his shoulder, and Robot spun around.

"Well, what a fine kettle of rotting heads is this?" asked another male computerized voice, as Robot stared into the critical orange eyes of a taller unit with bronze metal skin. "Didn't think my peepers would ever lay sight on the likes of you again."

Robot's voice caught, remembering this robot's name instantly. "Davvy unit."

If Robot had a nose, he'd have noticed this particular teenage robot reeked of rotten fish. But the oil-stained look of Davvy's probably only tuxedo was enough to confirm that this robot was still apprenticing in his father's fishing industry. JNZ's robots did a lot of different job, and Davvy's father's was a fisherman off of Davenport, for which Davvy got his nickname, and despite humans claiming he had a rancid odor to him, Davvy and his father were quite proud to be able to say that they were machines who faced the perils of water every single day.

"So elaborate, Tinyunit _Jones_ ," Davvy said, emphasizing Robot's last name for reasons Robot didn't know, "How is junior high school treatin' ya?" Like Robot had picked up slang like 'dude' and 'awesome' from his peers at school, Davvy had began absorbing the vocabulary of the fishermen that he worked under. "Have the humans taking a linkin' to ya? P'haps even feed you nuts and bolts out of a nice, big bowl on the floor?"

A shorter, stouter robot that vaguely resembled a mailbox, with less moving parts than either Robot or Davvy emerged from the shadows of a corner and joined Davvy's side. "Aw, com'on now, go easy on the lit'l corkscrew, Davvy, drowning in all that homework. Not like me, taking it nice and easy, pumping locomotives up n' down England to keep 'em going."

Robot frowned. "England?" They'd flown Phillips unit in from an international job for this meeting too?

"Ay, how correct," Davvy said, his screwed-on jaw turning into a wicked grin as the stout robot smiled back at him. "My sincerest apologizes, tiny bot. Yeh must be going through a ton o' stress, what with how clean and pressed ya made yer clothes."

Robot looked down at his clothes, and saw that Davvy was right-they looked so clean and tight, compared to not only Davvy and Phillips, but a lot of automatons here tonight. Though in good spirits, so many of them looked so dirty, so tired, compared to himself. Robot looked up and glared, remembering his absence of a bow-tie and feeling braver somehow because of it. "You don't know anything about me Davvy. And I didn't pick this job: I was assigned."

Davvy laughed, his voice somehow colder with the lack of human quality to it: "Sure, sure, as teh waters are blue. The last surviving Jones prototype, coincidentally given the task of integrating with the fleshy people. Poor, poor, spoiled little schoolboy."

"Eh, Davvy, what's the litl' nut got in his pincers?"

Robot snapped to attention, but it was too late. He was a robot up against other robots, and Davvy snatched up the little laminated card before Robot could think to hide it. "Ooo, what have we here?" he said, holding the card above his head mockingly, and keeping it out of Robot's reach as he jumped for it. "Phillips, care to read this fer me? T'was was hard keeping up me English lessons whilst on a rocking boat on the Atlantic fer two winters."

"Right-o, Davvy," the shorter robot said, taking the card from Davvy's hand, extending his own arm so that he could reach Davvy's. "Aight! It says here that this ell' fella is a Very _Important_ Person."

"Person?" Davvy spat, a black-tar loogie bouncing off the floor, and hitting some poor bald man in the back of the head.

The man reached up to grab at it, looking confused and fearful, but had no idea where it came from.

"Never knew such a disgraceful word fer a unit." Davvy looked Robot in the eye, this time with something even Lenny Yogman didn't have for Robot: Sincere, and total disgust. "Ought to be ashamed teh call yourself a unit." With that, he grabbed Phillips by the shoulder, and said, "Come, Phillips, think I hear the distant rumble of me father beconing in the distance. Excuse us if yeh would," Davvy spat again, " _Yer highness_."

Davvy walked, Phillips rolled, away, leaving Robot burning like a fire in his spot. All at once, the memories of growing up in that factory came back like a storm. The robots that liked him. The robots, like Davvy, who hated him. Hated him because he was a Jones model-one of the ONLY Jones models that could attribute their existence to Harris Jones himself. Davvy and Phillips made fun of Robot's going to school, but not because Robot going to school made him privileged. Davvy and Phillips were a typical pair of robotic teenagers who didn't have the luxury of going to school regularly (Robot couldn't believe he was actually having to think of school as a privilege), but because he was going to an all-human school. There were segregated robot-only schools in other industrialized nations, but not in America. And nobody had ever heard of letting a robot attend school with the same student status as a human. To everyone's knowledge, that made Robot himself an anomaly. And to robots like Davvy and Phillips, to successfully integrate, as Robot felt like he was finally doing, was blasphemous to their species. It did not look good to other robots for Robot to successfully complete his task: To become, essentially, one of the humans.

His parents were so enthusiastic about Robot completing his mission at school. Robot wondered if they were aware that the consequence of it was that Robot grow up to be untrustworthy to many of his own kind. Maybe even a traitor. If so, why did they feel it was still worth it for Robot to do it?

He couldn't stand there any longer. Robot stormed off in the opposite direction, leading to the main work floor in a different way. Through the offices wing, Robot stormed, pounding his feet in the carpeted hallways. Thought the factory was full-fuller than Robot had ever remembered it being, in fact-this wing was empty, and Robot found it easier to let his frustration show on his face when no one was around to look at him. He used to sometimes do the same thing at school-wander the halls aimlessly when nobody else was around.

He turned and came upon a particularly large hallway, wide enough so that even the largest automatons could pass through, with a path leading out to the main work floor and the catwalk, with Marvin Claymore's office standing right above it. Right above everything.

And when Robot chanced to turn around. Hanging there on the wall opposite the main work floor were three large pictures, one for all three of the men who founded JNZ Robotics: One for Simon Nathans, an investor, one for his supposed best friend, Oscar Zamboni, an international businessman, and in between them, the biggest photograph of the three: Harris P. Jones. The man of technology. The robotics magician. The mystery.

All three men were considered dead now. Nathans and Zamboni definitely dead: Both had taken over the plant after Jones turned up missing, sometime before Robot's initial activation, and both had died a few years later in a car accident, at which point the factory went into limbo for a short while before Mr. Marvin Claymore had purchased the company. His photograph was not present here, honoring the three dead men who had erected this modest, but very successful factory, but everybody knew his face rather well.

It was not Nathans, with his wavy hair and dorky clothing, or Zamboni, with his old world mustache and husky figure, who Robot was looking at. He was stuck on Harris Jones. This man that Robot owed his existence to, but had never once met. This man appeared taller, and had a broader chest than the other two, despite looking at least ten years older, but without an inch of excess fat on his frame. In the black and white photograph, he had a a full goatee and thick, dark hair that hung over his medium dark skin like the leaves of a coconut tree. His eyes were the most notable thing. Like Robots, they seemed so big, too big for his face, and made worse by the hollowed out look of his eye sockets, like the man had never known a good night's sleep in his life.

 _My creator_ , Robot thought. The only human in the world he really owed something to. Robot passed by that photo a dozen times, and noticed something knew about it every time. This time was the first time Robot noticed how unfocused Jones looked, like someone had just told him something that shattered his world when the picture was taken. Was that really the best picture they could have found of him? Or was he really just that bad in photos to begin with? He looked so awkward, in the middle of the two confident businessmen, and Robot couldn't help but loose himself for a moment in the thought of what this man was like, when he was around. Was he really as much of a genius as everyone claimed he was, or was he more the shy, tall, awkward human Robot saw in the pictures? Or was Robot only desperate to see something like himself in the photograph of that man, so he could really believe that this stranger was responsible for his existence. He'd give up a lot just to be able to jump into the photo and talk to him. The question that was on his mind the most at the moment was: would Harris have liked seeing the factory as it was now, under Claymore's rule, successful, but becoming frilly? If Harris was still alive, would he wonder about what had become of his own robots, including Robot himself? He looked down at the VIP card in his hands, still unsure what it meant. Around here, being one of Jones's personally crafted robots was celebrated, but Robot felt like it was a shallow thing to be honored for, considering that he never known the man, let alone formed a bond with him, unlike his father had.

The gathering on the main work floor was growing louder, and Robot knew that whatever this assembly was about was going to start soon. His eyes lingered on Harris a bit longer before wishing him goodbye again, and walking the hallway to the clearing.

Robot found himself followed by a crowd that was pooling into the main work floor as he entered, and for the briefest second, he couldn't recognize it. The work floor that he had walked through so many times as a younger child had been cleared, repainted, decorated, and crammed with tables, chairs, and servant-droids in finely dressed clothing. Humans and robots alike were practically tripping over themselves, glasses of wine, food, or alcohol filled oil in their hands and pincers. The lighting was dimmer here, lit up by candles instead of the harsh industrial lights, and through the long skylights above, the stars twinkled.

"Robot Jones!"

The little robot immediately knew that voice. He turned, barely avoiding smacking into a tuxedoed man and his wife, and saw his mother. Only, he had to really look at her, because the sight of her was jarring.

Mrs. Jones had discarded her regular apron, the one that Robot had never once seen her remove, for a flowered skirt. It had lace on the ends and appeared to wrap around all sides of her body, and around her neck joint was a ring of huge, fake pearls. It was similar to what a child might adorn playing dress up in preschool, but on Mrs. Jones form, it was fitting, spilling over just slightly onto her chest plate.

"Mom, you look," Robot blinked hard, his eyes narrowing, "Elegant."

"I see you left the tie behind," she said, folding her arms across her chest.

Robot groaned, hoping she wouldn't notice, but instead of reprimanding him, Mrs. Jones outstretched her pump, and lead the smaller robot to the left side of the room.

"Robot Jones, I believe your memory banks will recall Mr. McLaughlin?" said Mrs. Jones, gesturing to a tall, muscular man with balding orange hair.

He was in a suit as well, but like Marvin Claymore, Robot Jones had never seen this man in anything else other than suits. At the sight of the little robot, his green eyes went wide. "Ah, if you didn't look a day's difference since I last saw yah-how long has it been? Three, four years now?"

Yet again, someone had to make a point that Robot didn't look any different than the day that he began his human studies, and yet again, something about that irked him. However, Robot had mastered the art of hiding one emotion while expressing one on his face, and took the outstretched hand of Mr. McLaughlin to shake it. "Four and three months," Robot answered. "And it does not appear that you have evolved much since I last experienced your company, sir."

"Not much changin' us old folk do," Mr. McLaughlin said, his Irish accent coming out thicker the more he spoke. "'Cept maybe puttin' on a few pounds." He patted his stomach for emphasis.

Despite being as large and wide as Oscar Zamboni in the black and white portrait in the hall, Mr. McLaughlin was wealthy enough to have suits tailored to fit him rather regally. He was one of JNZ's earliest investors, and unlike a lot of the other strange humans here in this room that Robot had never met, took a particular interest in getting to know the units themselves-those that had the capability of communicating with him, anyway. And he'd always been rather friendly to Robot and his family when he stopped by. That was saying a lot, considering some of the hard-hat wearing workers of the factory didn't waste their time trying to build any friendships with the robots that worked or were built there. Tonight, when most of the workers traded hard hats for suits and ties, McLaughlin's personable behavior around the robots are what helped him stand out. "There sure are a multitude of individuals involved in the factory here tonight," Robot said, hoping he'd get McLaughlin to mention what he knew about why they were there.

"It's a madhouse," McLaughlin said earnestly, watching a group of young robots, probably about five or six, running beneath the table and attempting to zap each other with the lasers in their eyes. "I didn't even get the call until yesterday. It was lucky I was at my office in New York when I got the call or I wouldn've made it."

Robot gaped. "Phillips unit was called all the way over for this England for this."

"Remind me, that the one with the squat body, kinda looks like an ugly mailbox?" McLaughlin asked.

Robot nodded, trying not to smile. In the restraint, he broke into giggles. Mrs. Jones resisted the urge to reprimand him for being rude, and sighed.

"For Jasus' sake," McLaughlin said slapping his face. "Claymore better have a good reason for this, pullin' everybody from their lives."

"At the very least," Mrs. Jones said. "This event has given everyone a chance to interact with each other again."

"True you are, Mrs.," McLaughlin nodded. As he spoke, his eyes caught on something behind, and just above Mrs. Jones head, and his smile wilted. "Speaking of the gah-goyle, he's comin' down right now. Probably means this thing's gonna start soon."

Robot and Mrs. Jones followed McLauglin's gaze up far to the top of the workfloor, where the manager's office stood, suspended on support beams jutting from the ceiling, and flowing into the offices wing of the factory via a catwalk. While Claymore wasn't seen in the factory very often, when he did visit, he took over the manager's office, overlooking the workers themselves, to do his business. Because JNZ was still a company with only one factory, it would have made more sense to just dedicate one of the offices in the narrow, carpeted wing to Claymore, but for some reason, the man enjoyed scrutinizing over the laborers themselves when he was here. It made Robot feel uncomfortable for his father, who was more than once probably stared at by Marvin Claymore when he had his back turned.

From the manager's office, the turquoise door squeaked open, and out came three suited figures. One lean and tall, with a grim, heavy walk that Robot agreed with McLaughlin made it obvious to be Marvin Claymore. One fat and short, who was the manger of JNZ, Hans Pike, and walked with more humor and ease. And the third was even shorter than Pike, and thinner than Marvin. Robot felt unease crawl up his servos. Isaac Claymore, Marvin's son, was with them, and almost immediately found Robot's eyes. He was exactly Robot's age, and went to some sort of private school. For as long as Robot had known him, he'd been taller than Isaac, but the boy that left that office was now a full foot taller than Robot, and as if he could tell that Robot had noticed immediately, a wicked smile broke out on that otherwise angelic face.

He set his glass of wine down on the white-clothed refreshment table set up near the wall. "Bett'a go find the beached whale and take a seat."

Robot watched him leave, confused. "You didn't bring your wife?"

"Who'd you think I was talkin' about?" Mr. McLaughlin said, and then threw his head back for a hearty laugh. "I'll be seeing ya two."

Robot grinned as he watched him get lost in the crowd of people, making their way to the front of the work floor, where a makeshift stage had been set up, presumably for Claymore and Pike to make their announcement-whatever that was.

Mrs. Jones sighed. "Robot Jones, as much as I enjoy Mr. McLaughlin's company, I hope to not see you imitate the human's crude sense of humor."

Even though he thought McLaughlin could be funny, he could never see himself being as bold as to make jokes like that human. "He's one of the only humans who projects comfortably around us," Robot remarked.

"You are correct," Mrs. Jones said. "But my point stands."

Robot held up his claws, in a silent way of saying that she had nothing to worry about. His smile fell, once he realized that their party was short someone. "Where is Dad unit?"

"Waiting for us up by the stage. It took him longer to get finished and cleaned up." Mrs. Jones said. "Come on, we should get going."

Robot followed, but felt a stab of worry. Them, up front? Why?

Closer to the stage were dozens of metal pull-out chairs, in two nearly perfect rows, with a wide aisle down the middle. Robot and his mother were squished between dozens of humans and machines, filing into the chairs wherever they pleased. Robots that couldn't sit in chairs moved them to the ends of the rows, so that scattered humans could take them and use them with their own little groups along the sides of the walls. Other than that, the rows remained intact. Finally, they were up against the stage, just one row behind the first. Up to that point, patrons had sat down freely, but guarding these two front rows on either side was another low-ranking workman on duty, his hard-hat off, but uniform still present. He was rather young, and probably new, which partly explained why Robot was asked for an ID.

"The laminated one, Robot," Mrs. Jones reminded him, when he returned a confused look to the workman. A moment later, Robot produced the card with the VIP wording on it, and handed it to the workman.

"Ah, _you're_ the Jones'," the man said with a smile, handing the card back to Robot. "You're center down this second row to the right. Your dad's already there."

To this information, Robot's head jerked to the left, and sure enough, standing out like a sore thumb with his baby blue paint was Dad unit, waving his hand just above the heads of those who sat around him, some of which bent down nervously, afraid of getting a large metallic swat to the back of the head. Robot went running forward and saw that his father had also dressed up, as much as his body would allow, anyway. He was wearing a huge black bow tie in place of his regular long one, and now more than ever, Robot was grateful he left his little one behind at home-of all the robots in formal wear, Dad Unit looked the most ridiculous. Robot was just grateful none of his friends were here to make him feel more embarrassed about it.

Dad unit was standing-or sitting, depending on what you would call it- in a clearing amid the chairs, which was just wide enough for all three of the family. One again, Robot felt a stab of guilt for not feeling worse about Grampz unit not being here, but considering how much effort it was to move him, maybe it was just easier to let him sit in the basement, and tell him about tonight later.

"You look tired," Robot noticed also, standing next to his father. It wasn't a lie to avoid sitting in his hands-he _did_ look exhausted. Though Dad unit didn't verbally respond to this, he blinked heavy eye-lids to show that Robot was correct.

"Your father's had a long day," Mrs. Jones said. "We both have."

"Don't tell me _you_ had to set up this place," Robot asked, looking at the extravagant set up.

"No, no physical work for us," Mrs. Jones said, half sighing. She was about to explain more, but the lights above them suddenly shut off with a distant whirr, and everybody in the room was drawn to a sudden hush, like they were at the movies and the trailers were starting. The sudden darkness caused some people to trip over their chairs as they sat down, but they recovered quickly enough. Some of the robots used their own bodies, eyes or other appendages, to produce extra light.

Robot's head spun around and decided to take advantage of the total darkness and his night vision to get a look at everyone, and he couldn't believe how many people he recognized. Davvy and Phillps sat with their fathers far in the back, behind the chairs. Nutz was there, too, in the same suit and tie that Robot remembered him wearing when he was working for the guy. He wondered if Nutz was still mad at him, and grimaced at the thought of running into him at some point. He made a mental note to avoid it as best as he could.

Robot hadn't seen so many people that he recognized outside of school in one place before, and something about that was chilling. Whatever was going to happen tonight, they would all experience it together. He turned to his mother. "What is all this about, Mom unit?" he whispered. Maybe it was supposed to be a secret, but he couldn't keep his suspense any longer, knowing she might know.

Mrs. Jones turned her head from the stage to Robot. "To be honest, Robot," she said, her voice somehow still sounding tired, "I cannot produce an answer."

Robot watched her turn her head back to the stage, and he did as well. Surely, if mom unit actually knew anything about what the assembly was for, she would have told him. His mom wasn't one to sugar coat things, let alone blatantly lie. Robot looked to his father, who reflected the same glowing yellow eyes that probably made himself stand out in the darkness. Mr. Jones turned to him, and his somewhat worried expression was all he needed: He didn't know either. _So much for the perks of being VIP_ , Robot thought, finally setting his eyes on the stage.

At once, a spotlight shot down from the catwalk to the middle of the stage, and once again, everybody in the audience was drawn quiet. When most people's eyes were fixed on the spotlight's landing space, Robot's gaze trailed up. Two of the JNZ work-bots on duty were operating a makeshift spotlight on top of the catwalk, just outside Pike's office. The first man to take the honor of appearing on stage was Mr. Pike, his dirty, balding brown hair pulled tight towards his head with some sort of shiny gel. Robot almost didn't recognize him without the hard hat and yellow glasses, remembering the last time he saw him was when his father had taken him here to get an after school job. Once they recognized them too, some of the human workers here in suit and tie, and almost all of the robots in the audience began to cheer. Some of the teen-aged automatons whooping like warriors at the approach of their chief. Even though most teen robots felt jaded towards humans to some extent, Pike ran the factory in a way that earned slice of respect from them. Dad unit remained quiet, but his deep respect for the manager of JNZ was apparent, from the smile on his face. This was company pride in its purest form. Robot groaned at the thought that this event was just a way to get the workers of the factory pumped up to work harder. It would be even more boring than he thought it would be when he left home that night.

In the shuffling of the darkness, someone had placed a microphone and stand in the middle of the spotlight. Pike unhooked the mic from the stand as soon as he approached, coughing into his shoulder before beginning to speak. "Evenin', men and robots alike. For those who don't know me,"  
he said, probably referring to the wives and children of the workers who didn't see this man every day, "I'm Hans Pike, the current manager of the factory of JNZ Robotics."

Screams of passion at the company name ran out from the back of the audience, where most of the robots sat. Mr. Pike, looking amused, gave them a moment to die out before continuing. "Yeah, yeah. Well, tonight is a very special night, I can tell ya that right now," he said, beholding his audience. He wasn't a particularly charming man, but he made it seem like addressing an audience of some couple hundred robots and humans was something he did every day. "But ta tell you why that is, everybody put your hands together for da big-shot, da one and only, JNZ's CEO, Marvin Claymore!"

The audience reaction this time was even louder, but among the cheers, there were boos. Many, especially robots who liked Pike hated Claymore, and the mixed audience reaction to his slow stroll onstage was proof. Unlike Pike, it was hard to ignore the long trail of shadow that followed Claymore as the spotlight followed him up the stairs, and to the microphone stand. Pike graciously handed the microphone to the other man, and Marvin turned up the ends of his tight lips to smile at him in a way that seemed painfully forced. Somewhere behind Robot, in the tiring crowd, he heard someone grunt, and he was pretty sure it was McLaughlin.

"Thank you," said Marvin, as Pike stood in the shadow behind Marvin's spotlight. If he was the slightest bit annoyed by the boos in the back, he didn't show it. "It's a pleasure to stand in front of you all tonight, and behold so many familiar faces, man and machine alike." His eyes scanned the rows of seats, the ones closer to the stage being the most visible, while the ones in the back were completely concealed in darkness. Almost instinctively, Robot saw Marvin's head turn to Robot and his family, and snapping away quickly, as if just checking off a list in his head to make sure they were there. For the first time, Robot noticed how his tailored suit looked too big on him, the sleeve that should have exposed his watch as he held up the microphone to his face was still inching up his wrist. It was as if age was giving him a skeletal look that would make Nutz jealous. "As Hans has told you, this night is very special, for the future of JNZ Robotics will be decided, and you are all here to witness it."

Hushed whispers began peeking up behind Robot's ears, and someone said something about another person hiding on the stage. Robot turned his night vision up as far as it would go, but he didn't see a third figure anywhere.

Marvin stood with the confidence of a successful businessman, his speech well-rehearsed. "Tonight marks the ten year anniversary of the day that I was appointed CEO of the JNZ corporation, and I can't express how proud I am of how far we've come in that time. At this day, we are tied between two other corporations for first place as the biggest privately funded robotics plant in the world. And while much of the credit goes to the careful planning of my business staff, the technological scientists, and the many investors who pledge their loyalty to our company's pursuits in the name of science, I owe my biggest thanks to you, the workers and maintenance staff who make it possible for this plant to function, every single day. So give yourselves a round of applause."

The audience roared. Robot and human alike didn't skip the opportunity to pat themselves on the back, but Robot was too fixed on what Marvin had said to move. So it _was_ just an excuse to get the workers amped up, if the only reason Claymore could produce for bringing everyone together was that it was his anniversary. But why did it sound like Marvin had a lot more to say? He was sure full of it if he honestly thought the investors were all in it for the 'science' of robotics. McLaughlin was the only investor Robot knew by name, let alone who actually interacted with the robots themselves.

"And a special thank you for the staff who stayed on tonight in order to make this assembly possible," Marvin said, squinting his eyes up at the two robots who held up the spotlight on the catwalk. The robots smiled and gave him a thumbs up in return, and the audience roared again for the night workers. "The thing about JNZ that even our tied competitors don't always seem to understand is that we are stronger together than we are apart. We represent equal parts, human and robot, working side by side, doing the same jobs. In a world that restricts the integration of robots into commonplace society, we are the naysayers. We say, when robots cannot reach, make them taller. When they cannot think, make them smarter. This is how JNZ earned its respected place on the Fortune 500 companies, and this is how we will approach the future."

The audience managed to somehow get louder. But for every scream of agreement, there was a boo, again, mostly in the way back of the audience, where the lowest-ranking robots either stood or sat on the floor. Though he was VIP, Robot felt their anger. It was hard to see JNZ as this great progressive company that treated robots and humans equally when they were minimum wage robot workers who was in the back of the room, where the darkness made them invisible. Despite this, Robot knew JNZ still treated its robots better than other companies, so their front to the public wasn't exactly a lie.

Once again, Marvin behaved as if he didn't hear the negative voices, but for a flicker of a second, it looked less like he was smugly ignoring them, and more like he was too tired to think of how to acknowledge them. The spotlight was making the shadow of his sunken eyes stronger than Robot had ever seen them. "So it is on this night," he pressed on, raising his voice above the others, "that I come to you with news of an opportunity that offers to make our company, and our ability to reach what we pursue, even stronger. To help me explain, please welcome our esteemed guest, Ms. Donna Crowe, founder and lead operator of the Lightoller corporation."

The figure that Robot had been looking for in the dark behind Marvin finally stepped into the light, first a black high-heeled shoe, and then a long, blue evening gown. The robots overhead adjusted the spotlight so that it was large enough to cast light at the same time over Hans, Marvin, and a woman slightly shorter than JNZ's CEO, with ghostly white skin. Her hair was the thing that Robot found most recognizable from the photos he'd seen of her, though. It was as black as Cubey or June's hair, but chopped unevenly just above the shoulders, and ruffled like feathers. The way she sashayed into the spotlight was intimidating, given that she must be very aware that she was among enemies.

Her image alone brought a simultaneous gasp from the belly of the audience. At this point, anybody who had been shouting support to the things Marvin was saying ceased, so that only the booeres could be heard, and they were more agitated than ever. They were shouting so loudly that Robot could hear some of what they were saying from across the room.

"That _is_ Crowe!" some robot kid yelled.

"What's she doing here?" another shrieked.

Marvin placed the microphone back onto the stand and backed up a few steps so that Ms. Crowe could step up to it. She did not take the mic off the stand herself, but wrapper her long, thin fingers around it, her navy colored nails visibly shimmering, even from this distance. "Thank you, thank you for welcoming me to your incredible factory," said Donna, smiling even though nobody smiled back, let alone clapped for her. Robot was sure the only reason they weren't yelling at her to get off the stage was that everyone had settled into a stunned silence.

Donna Crowe. CEO of the Lightoller corporation. One of the two major companies JNZ was tied for first place with. One of their biggest competitors. One of their biggest _enemies_. Here, tonight, standing next to Marvin Claymore, on the night JNZ was supposed to be celebrating ten years of unwavering prosperity. Instinctively, Robot looked at his parents. To his left, mom unit was standing still, watching without so much as a crick in her neck. From what Robot understood of her body language, that meant she was as floored as everybody else. But to his right, Dad unit took on a glare so potent it almost made him jump back. The air was hot next to Dad's exhaust, and Robot was sure that the only reason he wasn't shouting hateful things like the robots in the back of the room was Dad unit's unwavering respect for his own company and its image. Robot had to admire his restraint, given how easily prone dad unit was to outbursts.

"I realize all of you only know me via media outlets, and those tend to give a slanted perspective on individuals. So let me remedy that by telling you a little about myself." She attempted to put across a more humble expression, but it was hard to get that impression across, under bright red lipstick. And for whatever reason, maybe the disbelief that she was actually standing there, in _their_ factory, the audience let her talk uninterrupted. "My name is Donna Crowe, I grew up on a small house in New York. My father was a technician for a small company that wasn't doing very well, and my mother was killed in the accident," she raised her right hand, and to the stunned eyes of beholders, removed what was actually a tight skin-colored glove, that started at the elbow. Beneath it was a complex cybornetic arm that gleamed in the spotlight, "That took my arm."

Gasps sprouted up like weeds among the audience. Robot hadn't known a lot about Lightoller's chief up until this point, but it was apparent that nobody at JNZ knew that she was an amputee-a cybornetically aided one, too.

Donna slipped the synthetic skin back into her artificial arm, and Robot watched it merge with the real ends of her skin at her elbow, and become seamless. "After that, my father turned his tinkering on me, trying to give me the best chance at a normal life, despite my disability. And that is what fueled me to create the Lightoller corporation: A robotics plant that specializes in synthetic materials and cybornetics. My staff and I have worked very hard, trying to understand what it is that people are looking for in the future of assisted robotic technologies, and be just that. Today, we have the honor of tying for first place with this," she looked deeply into the audience, like that would emphasize her words more, "Good. Company."

Robot's head was spinning, every inch of his brain trying to calculate the meaning of what was happening. What purpose did Lightoller corporation have in complimenting JNZ? The company that stole at least half of their potential clients? Millions of dollars?

"The gala we are enjoying tonight is at my company's expense," she said, with a click at the end, as if she needed to emphasize the implied cost of all these frivolous extremities like food and wine, when the meeting could have very well consisted of a group of metal chairs and nothing else. "Because there is some very important business I'd like to take care of tonight that requires your assistance." She stepped back from the microphone and gestured to the man on her right. "Mr. Claymore."

"Thank you, Ms. Crowe," Marvin said, taking the microphone off the stand again. "The CEO of the Lightoller corporation has been very generous to us tonight, because she comes to us with an offer that is very difficult to refuse." He waited a beat, allowing a couple of voices to let out their whispers to each other, before going for broke. "Ms. Crowe is giving us free reign and use of all of her specialized synthetic technologies, on the condition," he said with a raised finger, "That we merge with Lightoller."

The silence was shattered. Whispers among the humans, angry, confused, worried. Robots form every inch of the audience, not just the far back, were screaming.

"More like lie-tellers!"

"Incorrect and illogical!"

"Don't fall for it, Claymore!"

"She's playing you like a fiddle!"

"Get the shrew off stage!"

Some of the workmen in the audience were audibly upset, daring to shout their own versions of protests at the risks of their own jobs. Workmen who were in uniform and on duty, surrounding the perimeter of the stage, gave each other baffled looks. Robot let the cacophony wash up over him, taking in the sight of his mother, blinking rapidly as she was thinking as quickly as Robot, and his father, who looked so angry that he was going to melt down, right there, right now. And yet, of all the times he had a right to go on a rampage, his body was still, his hand not even twitching. He spun around to look at the audience behind him, his eyes falling last on McLaughlin, who sat next to a very confused, heavy looking woman Robot remembered to be his wife. McLaughlin himself buried his face in his hands. "Oh, this can't be good."

Of anything Robot could have thought of in that moment, the one thing that echoed through his mind was the definition of the word 'merge.'  
 _  
Merge: To combine, or to make combined, into a single  
entity.  
To blend in such a way as the two original forms become  
indistinguishable.  
_  
JNZ Robotics, this company that has built him, raised him, paid his father, ensured their health and well being, was going to become indistinguishable. Multiple emotions overwhelmed Robot, including one that he never really felt for the company before: Pride. He was _proud_ of JNZ, proud to be one of its creations, proud of those like his father for their steadfast loyalty, and ashamed of the thought of it becoming muddled and lost with a strange company that he barely knew anything about.

The outraged audience was met by Claymore with only a lined-grin, and finally, he raised his arms and called for attention. "Now, now, everybody, calm down," he spoke loudly and clearly into the microphone, his deep voice bouncing off the metallic walls. With only the speaker's help, he was more powerful than everybody on the floor beneath the stage. "Calm down. Did anybody notice how I didn't say I _agreed_ to her proposal?"

At once, aside form a few whispers, the entire audience went quiet again. Everybody close enough to the light of the stage had a baffled expression, robot and human alike. An assortment of voices saying "what?" could be heard.

As if on cue, Robot and his mother exchanged looks. Robot's confusion was far more apparent, but knowing his mother as well as he did, Robot recognized her confusion to be equal to his, just in her posture, and the bend of her neck when she turned.

Marvin chuckled a bit, turning his head from the microphone so only those in the first few rows heard. Ms. Crowe stood to the left, with her arms folded over her body, almost as if she was attempting to look gentle, but she swayed back and forth on her heels showed how much energy was building up inside of her. Composed again quickly, Marvin turned back to the mic. "Why do you all think you are here tonight? My good people, I would not make this drastic a decision without your input."

More whispers rang up through the crowd. Robot couldn't believe that he was hearing him correctly. Since when did a CEO need his worker's approval for a merger? Since when did _Marvin Claymore_ think it was necessary? Something was not adding up. Something was going on that wasn't obvious to everybody else. And every second that passed made Robot even more worried.

"Workers, investors, and units alike," Claymore went on, "are going to get an equal say in this. Are we proud of this company?" he asked, throwing his arms out to his sides.

"Yes!" the audience answered, as soon as everybody realized the question required one.

"Do we want the very best, and _only_ the very best for this company?" Marvin asked, his voice booming with energy.

"YES!" the audience practically screamed in unison, robot and human voices together. An indistinguishable blend already.

"Then we decide, together!" Marvin practically screamed into the mic, his skeletal body looking somehow stronger, like the room's energy gave him strength he didn't have when he first climbed up onto the stage. "But it wouldn't be a fair decision if we didn't allow for a demonstration first, would it?"

As soon as he said that, Robot noticed a ghostly figure moving in the dark, tanned hands guiding it forward. Ms. Crowe stepped left out of the spotlight and allowed a workman from JNZ to wheel a sheeted object on a dolly forward from the shadows behind the stage. The robots above on the catwalk extended the spotlight so that it could encapsulate Claymore, Crowe, and the sheeted object that now divided them, as Hans Pike was dismissed and exited the stage to the right to join the audience. Claymore then passed the microphone to Crowe, and this time, she held it in her hands.

"Thank you, _Marvin_ ," she said, winking to the man. "As much as we tie in sales, Lightoller admits JNZ's units are of the highest quality. Your machines are faster and stronger and more dynamic than ours." As she said that last part, her eyes found Robot's for the first time. Robot didn't know if his distrust was apparent, but Crowe's nose scrunched up before her eyes flickered off him.

For the briefest of moments, Robot wondered if his suit really did still smell like farts.

"But where we believe we could assist JNZ moving forward," she went on, easy as ever, "is in _esthetics_. This is the age of the android, and with your computer minds and our ability to make the artificial seem real, JNZ-Lightoller could be a formidable, unstoppable beast of a company." She spoke with passion, drool practically dripping off her cherry red lips.

Donna Crowe touched the top of the sheeted object with her palm. "To demonstrate what the Lightoller corporation has to offer you," Ms. Crowe said, "I have brought to the factory tonight a unit of my staff's own making. It is, without a doubt, the most ambitious project my team has ever embarked upon, and after many years of failed prototypes, it is finally perfected. Whether or not you, the staff and robots of JNZ, accept my offer to merge, consider this a present, in recognition of our fierce competition with each other. Behold:"

Without another word, she yanked the sheet off of the object to her side, and everyone in room, young and old, machine and flesh, hard-hatted or suited, melted together in a gasp.

The object beneath the sheet was roughly three and a half feet tall, only half the height of Claymore and two thirds the height of Crowe, with a large, doll like head, and every feature of her face and body curved with the perfection of a roman sculpture. But that wasn't what made them swoon-everybody in that audience had seen European androids that looked human in their design, and avoided hard edges.

It was the fact that she was entirely transparent, the harsh spotlight light bouncing off her skin, giving her a yellow outline and shine spots on her head and shoulders, being the only thing that made her visible to the naked eye. Every limb was clear to the point that you could see straight through them, to the darkness behind the stage. Her body was draped in a sleeveless gown made of silk, so thin as not to obscure the clear torso beneath. She looked just like an ice sculpture-even more perfect than ice, because there were no signs of white frost at her core. Nothing but pure shine touching where she curved.

"I proudly present to you, and the world: Project Zero:" Donna Claymore proclaimed proudly into the microphone, letting the sheet fall to the floor with her other hand. When she beheld the stunned audience, the JNZ audience that was just a minute ago hating her very sight, her eyes twinkled. "The Crystal Unit."

The very first instinct Robot had upon seeing that glass figure, that transparent... thing... Was to see how his parents had reacted. But the calmness of the room that had settled upon him was jolted by the fact that his father was no longer sitting at his right side.

Dad unit, the robot that never made the slightest movement without noise, had disappeared.

* * *

 _Originally Published March 15th, 2018_

 _Author's Note for the Story:_

According to the dates, I started writing this a week and a day ago. Holy God, it feels like it.

This factory gala night bit ended up being so long that I had to cut it off right here.

So here begins the beginning of 2nd big story element of this mega fanfic: The Crystal stuff. Basically, I've always wanted to see Robot interact with a female robot and compare her to Shannon, so I've re-worked this character again and again, trying to give her an interesting story and background and abilities so that she's not just a dumb, inter-changable fan character. I've been reading a lot of books that end up having some character made partly of glass and videos of people making glass-looking foods, and I guess the idea came to me to make this other girl, this robot character, made of glass. It is fiction, after all-why not an android that's entirely transparent? So I renamed her to match. Obviously at this point we haven't seen much of her, but she gets to do more than stand there like a doll in the next half of this gala bit.

I also wanted to write in some characters to act as the figure-heads of this JNZ corporation. Marvin, Donna and Isaac are as old as Crystal conceptually, and I'm finally getting these guys all written out. They've got their own sort of dynamics that make them more than corrupt business people who abuse robots because they can. And obviously, JNZ already had a manager, thanks to the Work episode, so I just gave him a name and presumed his Chicago accent (I think that's what they were going for.)

And there's also this interesting bit to explore as far as what Mom and Dad Units think of the factory and how it's run-how their loyalty and conscious minds are at war with each other-and that has to deal with why Dad unit took off at the end of this chapter.

If you're wondering where the Andy Fields stuff comes back into play, it pics up again in a later chapter. Right now I'm kind of picturing this how it would look as one of a series of continuous story-elements in a series of episodes, and that's why it's not important right now. The Shannon stuff is going to pick back up in the chapter after the next.

If you actually got through all of this, I'd really appreciate a comment. Even if you're just telling me to condense these freaking chapters, lol.

 _Whatever Happened to Robot Jones?_ © Greg Miller & Cartoon Network


	12. The Gala (Part 2)

While the eyes of most of the audience were locked on stage, on the motionless glass figure, Robot's eyes were darting all over the place. He looked now to his mother, who's head was spinning from left to right as well. "Where did your father go?" she whispered,and it sounded as if she was having the kind of anxiety Robot was feeling at the moment.

"I don't know," he whispered back. "He was just here a minute ago..."

His voice trailed off, too nervous to say anything else. His father had looked pretty miffed, the last time he caught sight of his face, and Robot understood why: The prospect of losing JNZ's identity to a former competitor was a slap in the face to his die-hard pride. Had he managed to somehow contain himself from having a meltdown right then and there, maybe he went away to release his frustration somewhere. Maybe he was outside, even.

In that case, Robot had nothing to worry about. But Dad unit was not the type to think rationally like that. Rationality was his mother's strong suit, not his father's. Dad unit vocalized his thoughts when he was mildly annoyed, but when he was truly angry, such as when he punched the lights out of Madman for supposedly spying on his mother, he had the habit of being oddly quiet in whatever way he reacted.

If Dad unit when out of his way to leave in a quiet manner, whatever he was thinking of doing wasn't going to be good. Get on stage. Tackle Claymore. Smash Ms. Crowe's incredibly fragile looking present against the wall. A hundred different scenarios played out in Robot's head at once, all of them Dad Unit's sudden and violent protest against the merger.

All of them resulting in his dismantlement.

Robot's eyes trailed back up to the stage, where Crowe stood with a silent, proud smile above her factory's creation. He couldn't put his thought about the short, glass girl into words until someone in the far back of the audience shouted:

"That thing ain't a robot!" came the first protest.

"There's no way!" came the second.

With his head spinning left, right, up, and down, his eyes even popping out of his head, Robot found his concentration tearing between looking for his father and the glass figure. The Crystal Unit, as it was so called, had enormous eyes, blacks for whites and whites for pupils, that gazed out onto the audience, to no one in particular, it seemed. It did not blink or given any secondary signs of life that Robot and other high-ranked robots such as his parents could attribute to a living machine, but that did not mean it wasn't a real robot. It was just... how could you make a robot made of _glass_?

Despite his grin, Mr. Claymore looked skeptical as well. "Well, well," he said, putting his hands on his hips, eyeing the figure from a step closer. "This is quite a feat. I'd say your staff has outdone themselves, indeed." He folded his arms across his chest. "That is," he corrected himself, "If the naysayers in our audience are wrong, and your... intriguing creation," he said, not sure how to describe the Crystal unit, "is really alive."

"Is she alive?" Crowe chuckled lightly. "I suppose your uncertainty is a given. Rest assure, she is very much alive." Donna Crowe looked from Claymore to the still motionless figure in front of her. She put the microphone back on the stand and bent down low to the unit's ear-which, like the rest of her, was totally transparent-as if to whisper something to it, but spoke loudly enough to be heard by most of the audience. "Crystal, I hereby turn over your ownership to Mr. Claymore, the man standing before you. It is your responsibility to obey every command that he gives to the best of your ability, and should the need arise, protect him." She looked at the figure for a silent moment before standing, back erect again. "Do you agree to these terms?"

In the smallest physical gesture Robot could have imagined, the unit at last opened its clear lips and said very quickly: "Affirmative, Ms. Donna."

Another gasp, this time followed by murmurs throughout the audience. Robot was among those who were having trouble wrapping his head around what he'd just seen. If it wasn't for that tiny mouth movement, of which he only caught thanks to his close proximity to the stage, he would have been certain as anyone else that the figure was sculpted from actual glass, and had no capacity to move. Yet it did have a moving mouth, just like Finkman- _she_ had a moving mouth, Robot corrected himself, and had the faintest little ring of a voice, but with no metallic edge to it.

"Then go to him, now," Ms. Crowe ordered of the Crystal unit, and without another beat, the clear android stepped forward. It was only then that Robot noticed the shiny spikes beneath her heels-instead of coming together to form flat feet, like they did on Robot, the ends of her legs ended in a shape like stiletto heels. Robot had seen machines on wheels, treads, and feet like himself, but never had he ever seen a full-bodied android who was given feet like feminine shoes. Like the glass complexion itself, he could only imagine that the same line of thinking went into designing those anti-feet: Crystal wasn't meant to blend in, like other androids. She was designed to stand out as much as possible. And balancing a huge head and heavily curved body like hers on glass heels was one more tick mark towards impressiveness.

The audience chattered as her stumps hit the floor, clacking in the same way as Crowe's heels as she came out into the spotlight for the first time.

"How is she walking?"

"How is she moving without breaking?"

"What is she made out of?!"

And mixed in the audience with the legitimate questions were sudden, swooning admirers. All of which were robots, and all of which were male, who seemed to have just realized, along with the confirmation that the Crystal unit was very much alive, that she was very unlike any of the female robots made or associated with JNZ, in that she was sculpted to look like a woman.

Traditional-style robots were easily told apart from androids, with their boxy frames and body parts limited to the absolutely necessary-which explains why Dad unit only had one arm. Some traditional robots thought androids and their design's objective to look human as possible to be neat. Some even thought they were attractive. Others, however, especially proud ones, found their attempt to facade as humans to be gross and dishonorable to the automaton species. In this case, Robot caught about a dozen voices mixed in that were definitely more admiring, and definitely attracted.

Feeling like Voice-recog-natron, in the denseness of the whispers, Robot managed to pluck out the voices of Davvy and Phillips for the first time. "Whooo, boy," Davvy said, his systems whirring like a loud cat's purr.

"What I'd give to get my claws on that casing," Phillips cooed.

"You speak my mind," Davvy said, and Robot could practically hear the smirk on his face.

He chanced to turn around and look for the pair of dirty minded robots, but they were nowhere to be seen-probably too far in the back still. Robot turned again to the stage and saw the android park herself next to Claymore in the exact same proximity as she had a minute ago been to Crowe, signifying that she had accepted the switch of her ownership. She did not look up at Claymore, though.

Robot had only ever heard the traditional speech given at a robot's passing of ownership from one human to another a handful of times in his life, but he remembered it word for word-as a higher ranking robot with a lot of duty being in his memory, it was just one of the things he was expected to know. But usually, passing the robot was an otherwise unceremonious occasion. A business transaction with a little formality.

But in the midst of this hullabaloo, it didn't feel normal. It was less like watching a robot pass from one human's ownership to another, and more like watching Crowe give away a bride. The Crystal unit even had the same demure look and posture of a woman from ages ago being tied to someone else beyond their will. Not totally expressionless, like a robot might be, but forcefully reserved. She was trying to look unbothered. Robot wondered what about all of this that she knew that she couldn't say.

Meanwhile, Claymore was still drinking in the android's image. Beneath his confident stance, his brows gave way to him looking slightly troubled the more and more he took in, especially now having seen her glassy joints carry her to him. Like everybody else, he had to have been wondering what on earth she was made out of-if from earth at all. He cleared his throat: "Thank you, Ms. Crowe. I'll be sure to keep her within my office. She will be a prized robot to my collection." He sunk his hands into his pockets as he spoke into the standing mic. "But I am a little worried about keeping her from shattering." He raised his eyebrow, as if hoping this would prompt Crowe to spill her secrets.

Crowe's navy eyelids lowered, having not missed the cue. "You want to know what she is made out of, don't you? I have spent many years trying to find a material that is both as clear as a window, and strong as steel. The prototypes were made from everything from windshield glass, to plastics used in modern architecture. But all preexisting plastics that we had looked into had the same problem: They weren't flexible. They wouldn't work on a creature that needed to have arms and legs move as seamlessly at the joints as human skin. Then I was told of a material found in Africa that gives a rubbery texture its bounce. It can mix with other materials in a watery bath that can be hardened into a mold."

Crowe gestured to one of the two workmen who had wheeled Crystal in on the dolly. "You, sir. If you would help me with a little demonstration."

The workman, with black curly hair and a face full of acne, turned to his partner with a confused look. He stepped forward into the spotlight, and from the other side of the stage, a woman wearing a blue Lightoller lab-jacket and black pants stepped forward, carrying what looked to be a navy bowling-ball. Her stride in her shiny, black boots was as firm as someone who had trained in the army, and her light brown hair pulled into a rock hard bun.

"This object that my leading technician Julie is carrying is nothing more than an average bowling ball," Crowe said as her eyes swooped over the audience. Neither she nor anybody else besides Robot and mom had noticed Dad unit was gone. She slapped her hand on the bowling ball, emphasizing the weight of the object as it caused the otherwise stone-still Julie's arms to bounce in the shock, just barely keeping hold of the ball. "It is a professional grade, heavyweight ball, weighting in at approximately 15.9 pounds. If hit at a specific point, this ball could do as much as to shatter the paint on a pin. For this demonstration," she said, taking the ball into her own hands, and Julie's soldier-strict posture was ruined by her body's wave of relief, but only for the slightest moment. "I am going to ask this strong-looking gentleman," she gestured to the confused JNZ worker that she had brought into the light, "to throw this ball as hard as he can, directly at Crystal's face."

A few more gasps, this time everybody remaining fairly quiet. Even if they weren't thrilled at the idea of the merger, they at least seemed to be too immersed in the show to disturb it.

Except for his father, who Robot still couldn't see anywhere. How did Dad unit, a man-sized machine who moved with about as much grace as a bull in a china shop, slip away, right under his family's metaphorical nose?

Robot made the decision, right then and there, that he had to find him. He excused himself repeatedly as he inched his way between the seats of the first and second rows, making humans grunt and sigh with annoyance as they tucked their legs in so he could pass. Once out of the rows, the light from the stage was out of his reach, so that he was truly in the shadows, so he had to be extra careful not to trip over other units as he called for his father in whispers.

"Throw the bowling-" the young JNZ worker said in disbelief, looking from the ball in his hands, to Crowe, to the Crystal unit, and at last on his boss, who stood a foot taller and many years older than him. "Why would I do that?"

"To display her strength," Crowe said with a grin. "To make a material that is flexible is giving it durability, as this demonstration will show." She stepped back so that the spotlight only covered the front half of her body. Her eye sockets darkened in the shadow, her nose looking so much sharper with the light hit it just right.

Once again, the workman looked to Claymore, and the CEO of JNZ raised his eyebrow and shrugged, stepping back and out of the way as well. Crystal remained in the spot where she'd stood next to Claymore. At random intervals, she blinked, but other than that, gave no signs of movement. The workman waited for a few moments, to see if the android would protest, run away, or even just flinch at the idea of getting hit. Most robots had enough common sense to protect themselves, but Crystal was under an assumed order to stay where she was. Robot could only imagine that the poor human was contemplating the possibility of being fired tonight, if he destroyed this very expensive gift to the CEO of the corporation.

And the android? What if she really _did_ shatter? Robot didn't know this shebot from Eve, but he didn't want to see another unit being destroyed, even if she was made from alien technology or something. A reaction from the depth's of his queasy tank made him cover his eyes.

The workman had finally worked up the nerve to stand two feet in front of Crystal, aim the ball over his head, and throw it as hard as he could, directly at Crystal's face. The audience watched as the ball gently sank as gravity took hold of it, giving it the exact angle it needed to hit Crystal's upturned nose, dead on. Such a fragile little facial feature should have stood no chance against the might of the fifteen pound bowling ball, especially one sculpted from pure glass. Yet anybody close enough to witness it could have said that they saw that bowling ball touch the surface of the nose, and slide right off, hitting the makeshift stage and falling right through, creating a rounded hole in the cheap fiberboard.

The audience members, robot and human alike, couldn't contain their excitement. Never in the history of robotics had they ever seen something so miraculous. Even robots made of steel and chrome would dent or show some sort of injury at the impact of a bowling ball.

Robot uncovered his eyes and looked up, and saw that the Crystal unit was, indeed, unharmed. Not only had she not been knocked back a few inches just by the weight of the ball, but she hadn't flinched in anticipation for its impact. Which could only mean that she was fairly certain of her own safety. Still, Robot even watched her reach up, with a cautious motion, and touch her little oval-shaped nose, which, when he zoomed in, wasn't even scratched. Instinctively, Robot reached up and felt his own lightbulb-shaped brain in his hand, its shape the perfect ball, just like any one of Crystal's curves. But Robot knew his own lightbulb was real, blown glass, and while it was made with a slightly thicker skin than the traditional bulb, what with it being so large, it was still the most fragile part of his body, and didn't take a lot of abuse.

The android's body was definitely not glass, and whatever she _was_ made out of, Robot understood, was extremely valuable. Something that would be hard for Claymore to not want for himself.

"Now, Crystal," Ms. Crowe said, "It's your turn."

The poor JNZ worker didn't even have time to guess what that could possibly mean, when the Crystal Unit rounded his backside, and pushed him up off his feet. He shrieked in the disorientation of being lifted into the air by a figure that was out of his eyesight, but didn't have a chance to do anything about it before Crystal launched him clear across the stage. The audience gasped, both in shock and horror at what could have happened to the man, crashing somewhere in the dark. Two other JNZ workmen ran onstage to assist him, but they had nothing to fear. A Lightoller worker had laid out a mattress directly where Crystal had aimed, and as he sat up with a heavy daze, it was confirmed that he was perfectly unharmed, save for a bloody nose. Though having flown in an arc at least ten feet in the air, the human projectile was alive.

Both Claymore and Crowe stepped back into the spotlight, as impressed cheers whooped through the building. The satisfied look Crowe had on her face was that if the cheers were for her. But if Robot knew his kind well enough, (and he felt like he still knew them well enough, despite all his time with humans), he knew the robots were cheering not for her, but for Crystal. As reluctant as robots were to admitting another's superiority, they knew when they had witnessed one of their own displaying greatness. In fact, standing in the dark, still looking for his father, their voices seemed to reach out to him.

"Did your optical sensors observe that?!"

"That was incredible!"

"Affirmative!"

"She didn't even flinch!"

"Think she felt anything?"

Robot concentrated on Crystal's face as he listened to the robots chatter about her. The general applause didn't make any kind of impression on her, and if she could make out any of the comments directed at her specifically, she didn't react to them. _One heck of a poker player she'd be,_ Robot thought, thinking of what Grampz would have to say.

Claymore's amused laughter returned, but Robot couldn't be sure it was one-hundred percent genuine. "Well, well... she is quite impressive, Crowe."

Crowe's eyes were shimmering with glee. "Oh, she's more than impressive. In my team's pursuit for a durable material with a transparent appearance, we've discovered something that no other technological corporation has ever discovered. Mr. Claymore, the robot at your side is not a regular android. She cannot be smashed, cracked, scratched, or broken in any way. Her mechanisms are eternal, her wiring guaranteed for fifty years at the least. She has stood against trucks, tanks, and gunfire in our simulations, and nothing as so much as knocked her down. The only maintenance she'll ever require is a battery chance. But aside from that," she said, whispering into the microphone, so that everyone could hear, even in the far back, "She is completely and utterly unbreakable."

The robots in the audience cautiously whispered back and forth, as if they were now torn about what to think. Crystal was intriguing, that was for sure, but she was still a Lightoller robot, and therefore, untrustworthy. And to understand that she, this ultra feminine, transparent android was the Chuck Norris of robot-kind, was unnerving to much of the robots present. Especially the macho-male robots like Davvy and Phillips, who's only pride came from the risk of their jobs. Robot completely understood their conflict, and even understood the fury Dad unit must be feeling, to take off the way he did.

"Get yerself lost lookin' fer the VIP section, I see?"

Robot grimaced. Thinking of which. He took on a stern face before turning to face them. "What do you want?"

Davvy and Phillips must have moved up a few rows to where most of the humans were sitting. "We just wanted to see the show from up close, right," Phillips said.

"Yes, sir," Davvy agreed with him. "And get an eye full o' that pretty machine up there. Does the _special_ robot have a problem with that?"

"I'm looking for my father," Robot blurted out. "If you haven't seen him, then get out of my way."

Both Phillips and Davvy's eyebrows shot up like the knobs on a toaster. "Oh! So the humans have given 'em a tongue! Isn't that precious?"

"Indeed it is," Davvy said. Without a warning, Davvy grabbed Robot by the arm. Robot cried out and tried to wriggle out, but Davvy was built for fishing on rocky boats, and his grip was iron tight. "But I find him a little rude."

"Yeah. So what we do with 'em?" asked Phillips.

"You can start by letting go of me!" Robot shouted. He was furious. It was bad enough when the humans pulled this schoolyard bully stuff on him, taking advantage of his smallness and shortness, but when a robot did it to him, it reminded him that he was an outcast everywhere.

"Now why would we want to be doing a thing like that?" asked Davvy. Without another word, both Philips and Davvy had him by the arms, and were moving him closer to the stage.

Claymore and Crowe were exchanging looks with each other, and then beholding the audience, which was now openly arguing with each other. Some voices were still very obviously against the merger and Crystal and Crowe, and calling this night a sham. Other voices were outspoken in favor of Crystal and making a new line of units that was stronger than before. Robot felt his cheeks go hot at the implication that JNZ's models were flimsy or breakable somehow. If Robot had legitimate reason to be proud for being a robot, one of the reasons was knowing that he was more durable than a fleshy human. Fragile, exposed bulb aside, he refused to think of himself as vulnerable.

His brain was conflicted over what to focus on, breaking from their grip or the huge decision making that was about to take place on stage. _And where the heck was dad?_

Just when it felt like Claymore would never stand up for himself, it seemed like he did. "Now, you realize Ms. Crowe that my company does not have a particular use for pretty looking materials. My machines are made practical because they are meant to complete jobs. I don't exactly know what use a strong glass-like material would do us."

Crowe's enthusiasm was unhindered. "But Mr. Claymore, I am offering you much more than the recipe for Crystal's skin. Over the years, my company has produced some of the finest quality prosthetics, and its not because they look pretty. They are durable, allow for speed, flexibility, and swiftness. With your computer processing abilities and my finely crafted materials, we could become the one-stop shop for the world's robotic needs."

Davvy and Phillips stopped short, in disbelief of what she'd said, and Robot felt his tank lurch. Crowe was offering Lightoller to JNZ to make them both the biggest fish in the pond-to become a monopoly.

Even if the lowest ranking robots at least made minimum wage, with a company twice as big, their conditions could only get far more worse.

Yet since the initial voices in protest of Crowe and the merger had died out, the atmosphere of the room had shifted. Crystal's demonstration had changed the way JNZ was thinking about Lightoller-not simply an undesirable enemy, but a formidable one. If Crystal was a legitimate example of the kind of dozens upon dozens, perhaps even hundreds of units they could make with this mysterious material, there was a genuine fear that they had something that could make them number one in this long-held race. Faces in the visible parts of the room were slowly shifting to show their realization that if they didn't merge equal parts with Lightoller now, that Lightoller could very well just buy them out later. At that point, there would be nothing else to lose.

One crazy ultimatum to fluff up with wine and teacakes.

"I think we've heard enough," Claymore said at last, one of his eyebrows still raised as he turned to the audience. "This is your decision, ladies and gentleman, bots of all ages. Do you feel that Lightoller Cybornetics would be an asset to our company, or not? We vote now: All for the merger, raise your hand."

Robot waited a beat for the audience to scream in retaliation, to snap into their senses, to stop letting this witch distract them with her pretty glass doll. But to his astonishment, silence fell after Claymore's last sentence, and like a wave from the front to the back, hands began cropping up from the rows, and from the random groupings scattered along the sides. Just a few minutes ago, the sight of Crowe and everything she stood for sent the audience into a ranting fit, and now, one by one, hands were going _up_. He noted a familiar many who did not raise their hands. McLaughlin, for one, was whispering some sort of profane words to his wife about these happenings. Nutz wore a scowl and had his arms crossed, and even Mr. Pike himself did not raise an arm. His vote was as ordinary as anyone else's, but he was the manager of the plant, and Robot found it alarming that he was opposing the merger, too. Could they, too, sense that something was deeply wrong?

Robot looked for his parents, but he didn't need to see them to know they didn't agree with the merger. His dad would never in a million years agree to forging an alliance with one of their most bitter rivals. And though she had a mind of her own and was free to vote as she chose, Mom unit was too smart to fall for this, too. That was too more nay-sayers who had clear rank in the company, but their nays didn't matter in the growing patches of raised arms. And, Robot realized with horror, they were almost all that was visible where the audience could be seen. He knew far fewer, if no arms at all, had gone up in the back. But they were invisible to the humans onstage. Always too far away to be seen.

"All opposed, now," said Claymore, taking a step back from the mic, as if it would help him see the audience more clearly. Almost everybody Robot saw who didn't raise their arms earlier did so, now, and without so much as a moments hesitation. Pike and McLaughlin did so, anyway. Nutz, for some reason, kept his arms crossed and his eyes narrowed. Robot was sure that Nutz didn't want this merger to happen, but for whatever reason, he refused to participate in the vote. It was as if it didn't matter.

And then Robot knew why. In the back of the room, he could faintly make out the hands of many robots who were raising their arms-mostly units younger than Robot himself who didn't know any better. But the robots he could make out in the darkness, for the most part, were also refusing to vote. Robot was positive that if every single one of them raised their hands, they'd outnumber the many humans and robots agreeing to the merger. Yet, if they had arms to raise, they kept them down. It was as if sitting in the dark solidified the notion that their vote didn't really matter, anyway. Claymore wouldn't see them.

Maybe Claymore wasn't really supposed to see them.

It felt like it was over as soon as it started. Robot did a quick count in his head of all the hands, compared to the ones that had been up before. Without the naysayers in the back doing their part, those agreeing to the merger seemed to have them tied, 47 to 47. It was exactly a draw.

That was, until one of the hands, a robot's hand near the front, suddenly went down. Robot's eyes zoomed outward, as a dozen or more heads, swiveled in their direction, including Davvy and Phillips'. A stunned robot man's head, in surprise, spun like a top before his eyes landed on her.

Robot didn't recognize this unit. He was young, probably Robot's age, and the suit he wore was almost as cleaned and pressed as Robot's himself. He was tall, but very skinny, with dark steel skin and a lot of screws on his face, scattered like acne. Though he wasn't accompanied by a set of robotic parents, it was quite clear who his human owner was. A finely but conservatively dressed old woman, seated next to the robot as if they were equals, was giving the little robot a fierce look. It was quite obvious by the tiny robot's shameful gaze, turned towards the floor now, why his hand had gone down.

As all the hope drained out of Robot's body like a gas leak, a confident smile broke on Claymore's lined face, and he thrust open his arms. "Well, as the saying goes, 'majority rules.' Donna Crowe, on behalf of my company, I agree to merge JNZ Robotics with Lightoller Cybornetics."

The screams were indiscernible. Even the robots that had refused to vote could not help but vent their outrage. But this time, their voices were being drowned by the sounds of applause, cheer, and celebration. The supporters could only think about what a boon this merger was going to be for the company, and for their pockets. JNZ was not going to lose to Lightoller. They were both destined for immortality.

It took a few minutes for Claymore to settle the crowd so that he could speak again. "And in celebration of this partnership, Ms. Crowe and I feel as though a symbol of trust was in order. But to do this, I require one eligible, young male robot to come up to the stage."

There was silence again. Humans looked to their left and right. Most robots who were seated up-front were married, and Robot knew the robots in back would sooner jump into the ocean than disgrace themselves in the name of this merger.

Phillips and Davvy's eyes flickered from Crystal, to Robot, to each other. From their disgusted looks broke a mutual smile that Robot didn't even have time to notice. He was too busy still looking at the acne-bolt ridden robot boy. Surely, if anybody, he was the one to-

"Hey, what are you-?!" Robot shouted, but to no avail. Before he could even process what was happening, he was slammed against the stage floor where Davvy and Phillips had thrown him. Right under the second spotlight.

Seeing him onstage like a sack of potatoes broke the tension in the audience at last, as some of them began to chuckle or cheer. And soon after that, applause accompanied that. Robot was so dazed he barely realized what was happening when he looked up, and Marvin Claymore was standing above him. "Ah, the littlest robot," he smiled, in an uncharacteristically fatherly way. "I didn't know you knew how to dance, but it was impressive of you to stand up and take the first."

 _Dance?_ Robot thought. "I actually didn't-"

"Now don't be shy," Claymore said, ignoring him as he pulled Robot to his feet, and thrust him forward towards the android. He looked at her, then at the audience.

They were a foot apart, and at this distance, Robot could see his reflection in her cheeks-his gaping mouth, his giant eyes, staring back at him. He was so entranced at this that it took him a moment to notice _her_ face, the face that framed his. She was looking so intensely at him, the line of her mouth drawn small, her lashes fluttering just once as she blinked. If she wasn't uncanny from far away, she _was_ up close.

He barely noticed her make the first move. She'd reached out to him, offering a hand. Her hands, like every other part of her body, was sculpted to look very much like a human, with the slightest cuts in the fingers that allowed for joint movements. Even the motion was more human-like than any other android Robot had known. How would one even go about programming that?

He finally thrust his own hand out, with a shake. If she could withstand the force of a bowling ball, how strong was her grip? But his fear was put to bed when she wrapped her clear fingers around his claw-like ones. Her grip was almost exactly like... Shannon's. Back when they walked the trail at summer camp. Firm. Unaffectionate, but firm, anyway.

No, it couldn't be. It had to be a memory. Her ability to mimic human behavior was so unreal that it had him confused with a physical memory. There was no way that she'd know exactly how she'd held his hand. He shook his head and looked at Crystal's face again, as music began filling the room around them from the speakers. Not party dance music like Robot had expected, but piano-based, classical piece.

Robot dared to peek at the audience again. They were growing louder, in anticipation for what they had been promised. When he looked at Crystal again, she looked as if she was waiting for Robot to make the next move. "Better do as they say," she said, just quiet enough for Robot alone to hear. Her tiny voice sounded as fragile as she looked, but given that he knew she wasn't fragile as she looked, how much of that was a lie, too?

"I don't..." he trailed off, taking a gulp as the old world music circled around them, mixed with shouts of encouragement and whistles from rowdier robots. His embarrassment was overwhelming. So many eyes, looking at him. Expecting him to act. "I don't know how."

To 'dance' was to move one's body freely or to a specific set of instructions to a piece of sound, usually music. Back at the Harvest Dance, the kids moved their bodies in all sorts of funny ways, and Robot was certain that half of it was made up on the spot, and the contemporary music seemed to encourage this behavior. But now there was a very specific song and a very specific expectation of him.

The problem was, Robot didn't know _any_ dances. He didn't even dance _at_ the dance, really.

Crystal let a beat pass between them before pulling Robot's hand to her hip. Robot didn't know what was making him more nervous, the increasing anticipation for something to happen, or the realization that he'd never touched a female machine before.

And he'd never touched _anyone_ like this.

With his claw clamped her her hip and his hand gently raised to head-level with hers, it only then occurred to Robot that they were the same height, give or take a few inches. How convenient it was that Crystal's first dance was with a machine that was also disgraced with a small stature.

How cute it must look.

"Do you know the first steps of a waltz?"

Robot gaped at her. "N-no..." He cursed himself for all the useless information in his head, none of which told him what a very basic dance required.

Her expression softened, her eyelids lowering as she thought. "Then loosen your joints."

"What? Why?" Robot asked. But as soon as the words came out, his left foot began sliding to the left along the makeshift stage. An invisible force was pulling-no, pushing his foot to one side.

He saw the motion happening, but he wasn't causing it. His left foot inched to a complete stop, and then his right leg moved backwards, this time with a more sleek motion. The toe lifted and swiveled, so that both Robot and Crystal completed a proper turn.

A gasp escaped his throat. _She's... moving... me._

Somehow, someway, she was making him dance. Like hands of a greater being were moving his limbs around, like a doll. One foot, than the other. One foot, than the other.

Robot recognized this kind of force-it was magnetic. It's what happened when he decided to lock his feet to the bus' floor so that he wouldn't go flying into the seat. When he unlocked Shannon's locker for her. When he sometimes got lazy and decided to command a wrench into his hands from across the room.

But his own magnetic aura had never been controlled by someone else.

Slowly, the movements became more confident. As his shock gave way to morbid curiosity, Robot was letting her gain more control, his joints completely lose now. If she decided to drop him right now, he'd fall to the floor, and then he'd really be something to laugh at. Instead, Crystal stared deeply into his face, keeping a firm grip on his hand and his shoulder, and caused his body to perform a dance that he didn't know. The steps became easier and more predictable, Robot's gaze stuck on his feet. To an unknowing watcher, it just looked like Robot was either watching his feet to make sure he didn't screw up, or that he was too shy to keep his eyes locked on the lovely android. But it was his own body that awed him.

He remembered when Cubey and Mitch had plugged into his body to help him fight off the Yogmans. In that case, his mind had been almost totally absent, and he'd willingly agreed to it. It didn't seem that bad then, but now, fully conscious and with an audience watching, Robot saw the horror of it. These were his feet, he recognized the way his toe bent and his foot slid across the floor, but that were not of his own will. They didn't belong to him at the moment.

The only thing he could control was how stiff his joints worked, and his first instinct was to lock them up. But doing that now meant that Crystal's dance would come to a complete halt. They'd both look foolish. In the android's eyes, there wasn't satisfaction at what she was doing. Just empty determination.

Robot understood. Crystal was the eye of the party. And while she could only control so much, she did well at it. Just because she was the center of attention didn't mean she was going to give the audience a reason to laugh, either.

As long as she had her hands on his body, and he relaxed his arms and legs, she could keep this going. And for whatever reason, Robot didn't stop it. He let her control him.

Every step Robot took was more graceful than the last, and Crystal met that grace, tenfold. Walking on heels didn't seem to hinder her ability to move-if anything, it helped. Robot didn't know how she was able to control two bodies at once. How could she control his body at all? She wasn't even made of metal. How did she have any power over metal without metal being in her own body?

Crystal had him raise his arm tall enough to spin her, just once, but it forced his eyes up to her face again. And from the side of her head, Robot saw the casing around her eyes, the sheen of steel around what he presumed was a tightly packed set of delicate computer hardware. Ironically, whereas most people's eyes were the most naked thing about them at any given moment, her eyes were the only part of her that left something to Robot's imagination.

So there _was_ metal in her, after all. But even that was such a small part of her body, and Robot had never known a robot to have such incredible will over other metallic objects-such precision. Or that the precious little statuesque android had just made a puppet out of Robot Jones.

"How?" he whispered, covering it with his back turned to the audience. "How are you doing this?"

"It doesn't matter," she said to him. There was a blankness to her words. She wasn't hiding. She truly didn't think it mattered. As if wielding this ability was common among robots. As if she wasn't doing anything truly amazing, or truly horrifying. As the music reached the climax, Robot wondered if at any point it had become obvious to those watching that Robot wasn't leading the dance at all.

"Doesn't matter?" he asked, his feet coming to a sudden halt. The trance that had started from the moment Crystal had taken hold of his body was over, even though she still had her hands on him. She pulled them away suddenly, and all at once, Robot felt control of his body again. He stumbled briefly as he regained his footing, which had to have looked pretty embarrassing. It was then that he realized that the song had ended.

Yet the audience exploded into applause. He could tell some of it was condescending, but all of it was pleased, in some way or another. If there were still displeased robots in the audience-and Robot knew there was-they had become disturbingly quiet.

"Think you can bow on your own?" Crystal asked flatly.

He turned to her, gaping, blinking in disbelief. "Excuse me? he asked, practically spitting oil. He hadn't realized until now that he'd regained control of his body as easily as he'd lost it, and to give her some credit, she hadn't dropped him on his face. Robot saw the audience cheering, and on Crystal's cue, he made a dramatic bow, Crystal lifting the right-side hem of her skirt in a regal curtsy. It took this motion for Robot to notice the wanton cut of her dress down the left side. As if showing off her head and arms weren't enough, whoever dressed her thought she needed to expose some of her legs as well.

The audience was deafening. At once, the image of her, the same that was stirring male attention throughout the audience, was repulsing him. What was intriguing to the vocal half of the room was disturbing and terrifying him. What was this thing? This girl? And why, when she clearly had a brain of her own, was she just rolling with this?

By the time Claymore reapproached the microphone stand, the noise of the room was still obnoxious. "Fabulous. Truly. Well, this _is_ a celebration." He turned to the workmen on either side of him. "Clean the floors of the chairs. Let's get the dance going!"

The audience cheered in agreement-the visible audience anyway. Robot could hear, could feel automatons in the far back move for the exit, not about to spend another minute here, to celebrate something they hadn't agreed to. The contemporary music, increasingly louder from the speakers seemed to be pushing them out, whereas the shadow in the back of the room eclipsed them as they left. Their protests fell on deaf ears, and their exit wasn't noticed, either.

Those that remained, mostly humans and robots who were well-off enough in their stations to be accepted, helped clear the chairs away from the floor, and started performing dances that had been out of style for two decades. Robot lost track of time as he let the scene unfold, like the comedic end to a terrible dream. It was around the time that he got nauseous watching an obese man in his fifties trying to do the funky chicken that he realized his own dance partner was no longer standing there. He gazed left and right, but the Crystal unit was nowhere to be found. When Robot looked up, Claymore and his son were back on the catwalk, the robots who had been manning the spotlights had placed them on posts, and Robot wondered if they had come down to get lost in the throng of flesh and metal, or sink into the darkness to brood. He didn't see how they reacted to the news.

It occurred then, to Robot, that this change was going to divide Claymore's company. Robots of all stations disagreed on the conditions with which they were treated, but they'd never had a precise reason to hate each other. Now, they did. And if he hated Lightoller for any reason, it was that. For giving a tangible line to cross. Robots will forever ask each other afterwards, did you stay at the party, or did you leave? And they'd know who was a friend and who was an enemy.

The reason that this cruel line was drawn, Ms. Donna Crowe, was now overlooking the audience from the catwalk. JNZ's catwalk, jutting from Pike's office. By the end of the night, this company would be hers, fifty percent. Robot wondered if she was visualizing which parts of it she'd rather consider hers. She was standing with Claymore and his son, who Robot had completely forgot about, amid everything else. While Crowe and Claymore were smiling and exchanging airy laughs, Isaac was not. His wicked smile, the one Robot considered his mask for as long as he'd known him, was gone. And every time Crowe's body shifted an inch closer to the boy, smile at him, Isaac took an entire step backwards.

Robot had never seen Isaac opposing his father's choice, always rattling on about his wisdom and what not. But now he seemed just as disturbed of what was happening as Robot did. Robot watched Crowe reached out with her hand, and out of whatever nerve she had, brush Isaac's long bangs out of his face, and Isaac shuddered and nearly slapped the hand away. Isaac only stopped himself before making contact, and Crowe finally seemed to take the message, with an innocent frown. Robot had never felt proud, or even just good of that particular human for anything, but he did now.

The problem was that the merger wouldn't hurt anything for Isaac. If anything, it would only make his father richer, and him more spoiled. So why was he reacting this way? He wondered what Isaac knew that Robot didn't.

Once more, Robot swept his eyes across the floor, looking for his father, only to discover his mother was no longer in sight, either. That didn't surprise him so much. If Dad unit hadn't have left when he did, he knew both his parents would get up and leave before they'd celebrate the merger. They may have been high-up on the ladder of importance in the factory, but that didn't make them stupid. And if anything, mom unit would have left out of respect for Robot's father, who was goodness-knew-where right now.

Then again, maybe she'd just gone to go find him. That's what Robot should be doing right now. But now he was too mad to hunt for his dad. There was only one being in the factory that he wanted to see right now, and despite being transparent, nobody stood out like she did.

Robot slipped out of the spotlight, off the stage, and down the main hallway, swerving between treads of adults who were either leaving for work in the morning and didn't have time for a party-'this nonsense' they called it, or sullen robots who weren't brave enough to voice their complaints, but bold enough not to fake a dance. He even heard some on-duty workmen who had stormed out to collect materials for the party's inevitable mess in a few hours, muttering about the nerve of Crowe to just 'walk in with a pretty ornament and take half the factory, just like that' with a snap of the finger.

Robot was at the end of the hallway again, and face to face with Dr. Jones, who for some reason looked more puzzled than when Robot had last seem his picture an hour or so ago. Robot figured it must have just been his imagination as he turned to head down to the right, and saw her. The Crystal Unit, standing in a dark corner, gazing up at the photograph of Dr. Jones, too, or perhaps reading the text description of the man on the side. In either case, Robot wouldn't have suspected half as much interest about the founder of JNZ from a Lightoller unit. He opened his mouth to shout at her, but another voice cut him off.

"There!" someone shouted.

Robot's eyes darted from Crystal to the hallway the other direction. A band off six robots were charging down the hallway. Four male, and two female, and they all looked mad. And all, he realized with horror, were adolescents.

They stopped just five feet away from Robot, and he expected that they'd look as confused as he was about the whereabouts of Crystal, but he found out soon enough that they were not looking for the glass android at all. "We got a bolt to pick with you, Jones!" shouted one of the girls.

Robot blinked, unsure he'd heard the male robot correctly. Instinctively, his head turned quickly to the spot where Crystal had been standing, but she was gone again. How could she move so fast and so quietly? "Huh?"

"We always figured the humans had you wrapped around their fleshy digits," said the first male robot, the smallest of the group yet, still a foot taller than Robot said. Despite the intensity of his anger, his voice droning in a way that expressed that he was broken internally in some way. "But we never thought you'd be so foolish as to accept the Lightoller bait robot."

"But that was a misunderstanding!" Robot said. "I don't want this thing to happen! I never meant to-"

"Save it," said the first robot girl, holding up a hand with two claws-one of which was bent at an odd angle. She was broken, too. "My grandmother is a lie detector, and I think I know a liar when I see one."

All of these robots, Robot realized guiltily, were both adolescents and of lower rank, and probably couldn't afford to be fixed as often as he himself could. The other girl, taller and wider, was painted a slightly darker pink than his mother, but it was hard to tell, because half of it was rusted off. All the boys were painted varying shades of dark blue or gray, and were covered with dents, from whatever grunt work they apprenticed in.

Davvy and Phillips were not among the boys present, and Robot figured it wouldn't make sense for them to, anyway. They had thrown him onto the stage. This was their fault.

 _But why did I go along with it?_ Robot thought.

"You know," the other female robot, with a heavier, slower moving body and ponytail said, "It is a true shame that of all the robots in this factory- **that all the robots in this factory** -that Claymore thinks of you- **thinks of you** -as the poster boy of JNZ Robotics."

Her stammer was made only sadder by the fact that her voice, which was loaded with emotion as she spoke, was spasmed to a monotone for every string of words her body forced out twice. But while this was a shockingly obvious malfunction on a young robot which should have been fixed a long time ago, Robot was stuck on her choice of words rather than how she said them. "Poster boy?" was all that he could say.

He'd thought the VIP front row treatment was strange, but he'd never, ever thought of himself like that-that JNZ Robotics thought of him like that.

"Is he thick? Or is he just really good at playing dumb?" asked Shorty to Bad-Eye.

"I cannot determine," said one of the other males, this one with a busted eye.

"Then let's just beat him up, then," said the third male robot, the biggest of all of them. A goliath of teen robots.

Robot gulped and turned to run, but Goliath was stronger than Davvy and Phillips combined, and pinned him against the wall with the weight of a tank. It was so powerful, Robot felt one of the pins in his shoulder joint snap. "I'm telling you!" Robot shouted, "I don't want this merger to happen any more than you do!" And then suddenly remembering something, he narrowed his eyes. "And you have some steely nerves to come after me, when none of you even voted. Claymore may not have seen you, but you didn't even try!"

"Hey guys, I got a new game I wanna play," said Shorty. "For every time this scrap-heap opens his trap, we clock him again."

"Ooo, I like that," said Bent-Claw.

Goliath wound his arm back with a hydraulic screech, and Robot squeezed his eyes shut, waiting for the impact. But it never came. After ten seconds of very hushed whispers, Goliath suddenly released his grip, and Robot came falling onto the floor-landing on his knees because it was unexpected.

"Just record for your memory," said Bad Eye, not waiting for Robot to get up, "The next time you get the chance to stand on stage, in front of a bunch of humans who have the money and power to change things, that there are machines out there who are suffering. And if word on the street is true, than Crowe could care even less about us than Claymore does."

"Hope you and your dumb glass droid have fun," said Bent-Claw, flipping her head so that an attachment behind it swung like such. It had the same effect of a teenage girl flipping her real hair behind her head, but in reality, it was probably due to a lost screw.

"Come on, units," Spasm-girl said. And just when Robot thought he couldn't feel any worse, the fourth male robot, a very squat, very square robot who hadn't spoken a word during the entire time was hoisted up on one side by the hands by his friend, Goliath-one of his four axels was destroyed and the wheel on that side of his body was long gone. Robot hadn't noticed the square unit had been assisted in their hasty approach and his curiosity of what they would do to the glass android. Even if it wasn't an intentional emphasis towards their problem, it was impossible to ignore.

There wasn't anything Robot could say as he watched them leave down the left turn in the hallway. And just when he thought it couldn't get any worse, he turned his head and saw his mother watching, standing in the path from which they'd all come. His embarrassment was so intense, he winced. "Please tell me you only just got here."

Mom unit's arms were folded across her chest. She wasn't angry at _him_ , Robot knew that much. But at this point, he'd rather have had that than this unbelievable embarrassment of being saved from a fight by his mom. "And lie to you?"

Cheeks hot, Robot brushed the imaginary dirt off off his spotless tux and approached her. "How come you didn't say anything?"

"It appeared I didn't have to," Mrs. Jones said, her arms bobbing in a slight shrug. "If they were to do anything to you, it's a simple phone call to their parents-those of them that have parents, anyway. And we all live under the threat of dismantlement after meaningless altercations, Robot."

Robot swallowed that answer like sugarless medicine. His mother was so frank, sometimes, it stung. "So, you really didn't know anything? About the merger, I mean?"

"Not a thing," she told him. "And you'd be correct to think that I'm as concerned as you are."

Robot couldn't believe he forgot until he said: "And Dad? Where did he-?"

"Your father has left to confer of the higher ranking robots in the company about this. This may have been a vote, but the robots were clearly misrepresented." She gestured to the space where the other adolescent robots had stood. "As annoyed as I am that the teenage robots of the company decided to take their aggression out on my son," she said, reluctance in her tone, "I can see why they are upset."

Robot felt a weight lift off his mind. So Dad unit _had_ been upset, but he'd found a way to react rationally, after all. "So you and dad are going to try and fix it, right?" Robot asked. He felt like a kid again, when he believed his parents had the power to make anything possible if he begged hard enough. But this time, it wasn't for a toy or some other selfish desire, but for every robot who's lives were going to be made so much worse by the company doubling in size.

"We're going to see what we can do," she told him, reaching out to rest her pump on his shoulder. "Humans may still have most of the control, but our family _does_ represent this company, Robot Jones. And the best we can do is maintain our dignity and give them a reason to listen to us. Which is why I admire that you refrained from getting in a punch." Even though she didn't have a mouth, Robot heard an implied smile in the way she said that last part.

He wanted to tell her that he would have definitely began throwing punches if he wasn't pinned against the wall by a robot with the weight of a tank, but he didn't want to deflate the pride she had for him right now.

"I don't believe there is going to be anything else significant happening tonight, and half of the patrons and workers have gone home," she told him. "I think it would be best if you do, too. It's well past your bed time."

"But it's a Friday night!" Robot protested. Though he didn't know why he was about to argue to stay. Unless by some miracle Mom and Dad units were able to change Claymore's mind about the merger, the rest of tonight was going to be nothing but old people arguing and dancing to '50s rock, in celebration a company change which meant nothing to them but making more money. And he didn't particularly want to run into the angry teen robots again.

The only thing that was actually compelling him to stay was finding and confronting Crystal, but who knows where she was? Or if Claymore hadn't whisked her away to show off to the investors? And what exactly would he say when he found her alone? He had too many questions for her.

"Do not argue with me, Robot Jones," his mother said, rubbing her head. She truly sounded exhausted now. "You will return home this instant. It will give me one less thing to worry about right now. I will get Manifold to drive you back."

"What about Muff?" Robot asked, referring to the other of the two robot workers who escorted him to the factory.

"Too much alcohol in his tank tonight. I don't trust him behind the wheel."

Robot could only assume that Muff was not drinking in celebration of tonight's news, and he wondered how badly the rest of the adult robots were taking it, and how bad things were going to get before they got better. If they ever did.

With that, Mrs. Jones turned to leave, but she halted suddenly. "And Robot, I cannot say for sure if the gossip regarding the human Crowe holds any truth, but for the time being, I'd prefer if you stay away from her and her android."

"But mom, the stage, the dance-" Robot started, stammering.

"I know you mean well, Robot," Mrs. Jones interrupted. "And I admire your boldness. But this is a very delicate situation, and until we know more, we shouldn't patronize them." She waited a beat, then tipped her head to the side, her face catching a shadow from the light bearing down behind her head. "Unless you had another reason for wanting to take the dance with Crystal?"

Robot couldn't tell if he was more frustrated or insulted. "Oh, mom, not you too! You can't honestly believe that I wanted-" But he sighed. It was late, and he was tired, and he was sick of trying to explain himself. "Oh, never-mind." It was something that was going to have to be explained later, in detail.

With that, Mrs. Jones hurried to go find Robot's escort driver. It could have been his imagination, but Robot thought he might have read more curiosity than disappointment into the way she'd asked if he'd had another motivation for getting close to Crystal, but that didn't make him feel any better. Even if everybody thought that Robot was just trying to 'make nice' with their new business partners, he was still as good as a traitor, both to JNZ and to the welfare of his own kind.

He didn't know why he cared so much what they thought, especially when they were wrong, except that Robot had never really gotten along with other robots his own age. And at the rate his reputation was going, he wasn't seeing a robot girlfriend in his future. He grimaced thinking about the way the two female robots in the group scoffed at him, realizing that they had as little interest in him romantically as human girls-maybe even less, if that was possible.

Between fainly flirting with human girls and trying to earn the respect of teenage shebots, he hadn't managed to even get as far as kissing one of either. Not since he got old enough to notice girls in the first place, anyway. Considering that his days pining after Shannon were over, and he decided to start looking for girls of his own species, it hurt more to remember that he had been marked as the 'human-lover' ever since he began going to a human school. (Heaven forbid they ever learn anything about Shannon). And while not every shebot from JNZ was furious at the prospect of their men flirting with human women, a fair amount of them did. Spasm and Bent-Claw were two who did. And after what had just happened tonight, Robot couldn't fathom ever getting in the collective good-graces of the female robots of this factory.

At once, he wondered if Mom unit would care if he dated a human. If his own kind was going to continue , would she understand if he decided to try with a human, if that human gave him a chance? His parents had mixed feelings about the human species, and despite Grampz unit being the obvious first one to throw a fit, he couldn't see his mother doing the same. Maybe he just hadn't found the right human yet.

Or maybe he just hadn't found the right _shebot_ yet.

* * *

 _Originally Published March 31st 2018_

 _Author's Note for the Story:_

JAJAJAJAJAJAJAJA I just really want to post this and get it out of the way, I am so sick of revising this chapter.

So this chapter is VERY important because of all the key events that happen, which are going to cause a lot more things to happen in later chapters. As I was reading this back over the past few weeks I've noticed a lot of contradictions in the writing, and these are do to changes I decide to make as I go along. These are big ones, such as Robot's belief that Claymore is changing JNZ to become phony-I've changed it so that Claymore is only responsible for generally SMALL sings of phoniness, such as the little double robot toy given to clients that I mentioned back in chapter 10. But these are going to be very small in comparison to the kinds of esthetic changes that Crowe is going to be responsible for once she gets her hands into the way JNZ is run.  
And there are also a lot of small changes, such as what me and my friends have decided Crystal's feet are going to look like compared to how they were described in previous drafts.  
Anyway, if there are inconsistencies, please point them out to me. I've read this chapter so many damn times I could practically rehearse the first half it off the top of my head.  
One of the other big problems I had with this chapter, and why it took a long time, was that the verbage was really... bad. Like, over the top. Normally my drafts have a decent balance of common words and more specific ones, but the writing was just coming off as really frilly to me, and I had to change a lot of the words so that reading this motherfucker was easier.

If the wording in this chapter in particular bugs you, I am sorry, I tried really hard to clean it up so that it reads easier.

PLZ if you read tell me what you think. Tell me it's good. Tell me it's shit, tell me how I could improve. IDFCare. Say words.

 _Whatever Happened to Robot Jones?_ © Greg Miller & Cartoon Network


	13. An Eye for an Eye

Half past midnight, Robot got dropped off at his home. Not the latest he'd ever been awake, but definitely not allowed by his strict-as-a-line mother if not for a special occasion. His parents were still at the factory, helping organize a plan for addressing the robots' complaints to Claymore, and Robot estimated that they'd be gone until sunrise.

As soon as he got there, he threw off his jacket and loosened the rest of the tuxedo as much as he could without tearing it off his body. He then ran down to the basement, where he flung on the lights and grabbed the amplifying horn funneling into Grampz unit's hearing receptor.

"WAKE. UP." he shouted into it, his voice echoing in the quiet basement.

Maybe it was the anger with which he spoke. Maybe it was something else, but Grampz's screens buzzed to life instantly, his systems whirred, his body creaked and squeaked as various mechanisms pulled themselves together to wake the behemoth sleeping computer. It seemed like even though he was as groggy as anybody who'd just woken up, he didn't have to be reminded of who Robot was. "What reason do you have to wake me at this hour?" he demanded, more dazed than angry. At least that meant his 24 hour clock was still working.

Robot hopped down from the perch where he'd stood to shout into the amplifier and stood in front of Grampz, his feet thundering as they hit the ground. "JNZis merging with Lightoller! That's what this whole big hullabaloo was about! And Claymore had them vote on it! And a quarter of those who voted were robots! _Robots_ , Grampz!"

Grampz unit grumbled, then his systems softly whirred for a bit before he responded. "So it is."

Robot blinked, waiting for him to say more. But after a moment or too, it became clear that he had nothing else to say about it. "You're not mad?"

"What is there to be mad about?" asked Grampz. "Yet again the humans have made a decision which will only come to benefit their pockets. And the automatons who Claymore have brainwashed were never our friends to begin with. They have their pincers in the pot, too. Child, it was only a matter of time. And it seems that time has come."

Robot was speechless. He knew his grandfather had always been skeptical of humans and there intentions, but he was so sure Grampz would flip out over this news. Nay, he thought the old computer would be seething with rage. Maybe Grampz had lived long enough to witness so many corporate disasters that nothing surprised him anymore. "But..." he said, finally finding words, "It's _Lightoller_. It's our rivals. You aren't afraid of what they could do?"

"Any pride Grampz Unit has accumulated for JNZ Robotics over the years has been deflated by countless disappointments," the old computer replied. "Grampz knows of Lightoller's reputation for cruelty among their units, and I am not surprised that Marvin Claymore does not care about that reputation."

All the frustration that had built up inside Robot that evening suddenly began to fizzle out, leaving a horrible emptiness in its place. When Robot had come down to the basement, he was expecting Grampz to be right there with him, ranting and raving, to keep the fire in his tank ablaze. When Mom unit had promised that she and dad would work on a way to convince Claymore that the merger was a mistake, it generated a fight inside of him, and he thought that fight would be shared by Grampz. Instead, Grampz had extinguished this fire, along with the hope of undoing tonight. After building up his courage, Robot asked: "Why don't _you_ care?"

A monotone laugh with a wicked edge echoed from the belly of Grampz's machinery. "It does not affect me, does it? I am an old creature nearing the end of his life. An old creature confined to the basement of a house. Any day now someone will try to wake me, and I will not wake. And I will not ever wake again. And I know that the overseers at the factory will not see monetary gain at attempting to fix me, no matter how much my grandson begs for it. No, Robot, I am not concerned with what Lightoller has in store for JNZ. If there should ever be change in the relationship between robots and humans, it will be in your lifetime, and not mine."

Robot felt as though he'd been smacked across the face. So much of his pride for his kind and his company came from Grampz, but here was the very same machine telling him that it did not matter. That none of it mattered. It was a kind of cynicism that Robot had never seen Grampz express before. A hopeless one. And it made Robot very mad. But the thing that pushed him over the edge had to be the faint insinuation that Robot was a spoiled child who whined when he didn't get what he wanted.

The words came out faster than Robot could stop them. "You know," he started, eyes narrowing, "Perhaps things never changed in your lifetime because you never did anything about it! It sure is easy to sit there, and complain, and pretend that because you don't have a mobile body that you are helpless! But you have the internet! You have access to the outside world! And now you even have a mobile body for exploration, now, and you still act like everything is hopeless! I respected you when you were trying to excite my pride for robots, but I do not respect this-" he gestured outwardly with his arms, "Whatever this is."

Making sure he had the last word, Robot turned and walked back to the staircase, his feet thundering with every angry step. When he reached the top, however, he turned and added something else in a much calmer tone. "And furthermore, Mom and Dad units are attempting to band robots together for an objection against Claymore's decision, so you very well might see change for robots in your lifetime. Even if you're not doing anything to help it."

When Robot woke, there were papers spread out all around him and the couch.

Before falling asleep last night, Robot had opened Finkman's file for the first time. Because maybe by learning about one enemy, maybe he could figure out more about another.

Upstairs in his room, with the lights off, he had pulled the box away from the wall inside his closet and revealed the almost invisible little panel that he himself had cut from the wall. Pulling away the panel, he had pulled Finkman's file from the top of the two-file stack, and took it to the beat-up green couch, where he turned open the top of the file.

To Robot's disappointment, it was as barren as he feared it would be.

Name: Finkman, Felix (named after his creator, Robot assumed).

Country of origin: Austria (obviously, for Shannon had told him. Not to mention his accent fit the area).

Gender: Male (in case THAT wasn't immediately obvious).

And so on and so forth, dull facts about him. The rest was just a summary of the foreign exchange program that had allowed Finkman to come here. If there was police documentation about his sudden disappearance in the middle of the semester, it wasn't here. Either Finkman was really good at destroying evidence, or perhaps the exchange program had ended at the time when Finkman had left. If so, then who was the kid who was exchange _out_ of Polyneux? And did they ever come back?

Robot thought about this as he quickly pieced the file back together for storing. The only thing that was remotely interesting was a personally typed summary of Finkman's stay at Polyneux that was written by Ms. Wilson, of all people.

 **To: Mr. Samuel Madman: My Dear Chief, You will have to pardon my complaint, but I am sick to death of dealing with the problems that have laid in the wake of the arrival of this foreign exchange student-Finkman, I believe. I probably should know what his name is, considering that I've had to personally direct poor Clancy to remove the name which has been repeatedly written over the lockers, the girls bathroom walls, etc, for the past three weeks. I never thought I'd live to see the day where you turn your back on discipline at this school, but here I sit, in between piles of adolescent love-struck graffiti writers' detention slips, as you roam the halls with the students and celebrate this child. I don't care that he has never broken a school rule, found himself in detention, or done anything to get in your bad graces. I have sat in on one of his classes and I have found his attitude suggestive that he very much believes he is God's gift to young ladies (And you... apparently). Whether or not having a strong ego is a part of his culture or something, I do not know, but as a proud feminist, I do not appreciate that sentiment. I recall very clearly when Mr. Robot Jones first began attending Polyneux, and it was all I could do to erase your paranoia about him intending to spy on your for the feds. I would never in a million years put my job on the line by supposing that our young Austrian guest is performing espionage, but I would say that it is entirely too easy for any robot with more of a finesse for social interaction than our previous robotic student to get away with anything right under your infamous black mustache.**

Robot could practically hear her sigh, here.

 **Concerned regards, as always, Ms. Gretchen Wilson.**

Well, who would've known? They'd had a grown up ally against Finkman all along! Two, if Clancy counted, and Robot knew in his recent time getting to know Clancy better that any extra work he had to do would equate to the custodian disliking Finkman about as much as he himself did.

Still, between them and all the frustrated boys, those who saw Finkman for who he really was were still in the minority. Robot was impressed with the idea that Ms. Wilson had stood up to Madman, though she'd never acted like she was intimidated by him in the same way that everybody else did. He felt even warmer towards her knowing that, if what she was saying here was to be believed, that she had stood up for Robot when Madman was accusing him of being a spy for the government-what a silly, oversuspicious man. (Although Robot couldn't say he wasn't a little offended as Ms. Wilson's implication that Robot himself had no social skills, even if it was true at the time this letter was written). While Clancy and Mr. Mitchell proved a long time ago to be trustworthy adults, Ms. Wilson had the disadvantage of almost always keeping herself behind her door, doing the paper work, while Madman took to the halls. She was more stable than Madman could ever hope to be. Robot almost felt sorry for tricking her to get to the files.

But the deed was done. Now Robot just had to work up the nerve to read Shannon's file, return both the files to her office without Ms. Wilson noticing, and then one of many headaches he had been juggling would be gone. But Robot still couldn't convince himself that pretending to care about him justified this kind of wrong. He kept thinking about that history lesson about Ivan the Terrible, and his policy for justice based on the phrase "an eye for an eye." Shannon may have played him for a fool, but she never did anything to make Robot feel so personally violated as reading his personal information. How would he feel if Shannon had access to his memory banks and tried to learn all the most cherished and embarrassing and horrible memories he had collected in his time on earth? How about if she learned about his tear-shedding struggles with training to use a human toilet? The teenager felt like he was going to black out at just the thought.

As someone who's job it was to journal the most personal life experiences to be read by unknown humans and his parents alike, Robot valued whatever remained of his privacy dearly. And no amount of heartbreak could make him take it from someone who still deserved hers. Even if they barely constituted as friends anymore.

Robot thought about this as he put Finkman's file back together. But before slipping it back into the wall, he hesitated, and he removed the letter Ms. Wilson had wrote to Madman, stuffing it into his chassis. In the unlikely event that anybody would crack open Finkman's file again-unless the United States government suddenly decided to investigate this adolescent exchange unit for the possibility of having stolen federal information, in which case they'd be exactly right and two years two late-Robot didn't know for sure if Madman had actual ever read this letter, given the lack of a reply which would have been paper clipped to it. It may have just been something she typed up to vent about, and pompous Madman may have ignored if it had ever been delivered to him. And now knowing that he could trust Ms. Wilson above other adults, he didn't want her to lose her job over something she had wrote two years ago.

Besides that, it was written evidence that someone saw something shady in Finkman that would justify Robot's hatred of him-something that couldn't be shrugged off as jealousy. He didn't know when, but Robot saw potential in this letter coming in handy someday.

The automaton then made his way downstairs, tip-toeing so as not to disturb his sleeping parental units. But when he got to the kitchen to prepare himself a hot cup of oil, he was surprised to see his mother already at the sink. "Good morning, Little Robot," she said, sounding almost tired as she did the previous night.

"You're up already?" he asked. His internal clock flashed before his eyes: 7:38 AM. Even he hadn't had a full eight hours of sleep. "When did you activate?"

"Your father and I haven't slept yet," she told him, head hanging low. "It was a long night. I don't know how much of what we said had an impact on Claymore and the investors, but they seemed interested to hear our problems, so it's a start."

"They're not going to reverse the merger?" Robot asked.

"I'm afraid it is looking very unlikely," Mom unit admitted, sadly. "But on a more positive note, it appears that we won't be heading into the future with as little hope as we had before. Near the end of the conference, there was talk of the scale of the combined companies offering new benefits for the robots. Believe it or not, Crowe herself had some ideas for helping the robots of both factories feel as if they had more liberties."

"Crowe said that?" Robot asked. As much as he didn't want to believe a person only amounted to the gossip that surrounded them-he himself would have no friends if Socks, Mitch, and Cubey believed that-it was hard to imagine that slimy lady with the shoulder pads and the sticky hair would be willing to put forth new opportunities for robots to feel less like indentured servants.

"I can't be so sure she is being genuine, either," Mrs. Jones added. "But, now that she's put the idea out there, the units are going to demand _something_ to show for it. It's up to her how she wants to go about it."

Robot nodded. "Where's dad?"

"He hasn't come home yet," Mrs. Jones sighed. "He is very upset about this whole thing, and he isn't done venting about it yet."

"Good!" Robot suddenly exploded. "That makes up for all Grampz unit cares!"

"Oh, Robot, don't tell me you told your grandfather about this," Mrs. Jones said, setting down a cup of oil hard on the counter.

"What does it matter?" Robot shouted. "He doesn't care anymore about anything that doesn't immediately affect him!" He slapped his forehead, the memory of the previous night, and all it's frustration, coming back to him all of the sudden. "I can't believe how much I used to look up to him! Miserable heap-"

"Robot Jones, that unit is in no mindset to deal with an issue like this," Mrs. Jones said, firmly. "We'll be lucky to keep him for another three seasons. Why, I have a right mind to make you walk down to that basement right now and apologize for being so rude to him!" She paused, and sighed. "Except that I suspect that he won't wake to hear it."

A moment of silence passed between them before Robot found his voice. "He's getting worse, Mom."

After a while, she replied. "I know."

Robot forgot at what point he began staring at his toes, or at what point he began feeling bad. But he wanted it to stop-today wouldn't be productive if he was feeling sorry for himself. "I'm going to the factory," he told his mother.

"On a Saturday?" she asked, skeptically. Ever since Robot made friends, it was all she could do to keep him from seeing them on the weekends. "Whatever for?"

"If you're taking this up to the top of the ladder," Robot said, taking the cup of hot oil in his hands and watching the steam rise, "then I'm going to work from the bottom. Starting with Crowe's android."

* * *

After the long, tedious walk to the city and up the rolling hill, Robot entered the factory in a state he'd never seen before. There was still trash scattered all over the grounds, leading in denser concentration up inside. Paper cups spilling punch and oil, napkins stuck under doors where drunk partiers had slipped in and out of rooms. The remaining humans were long gone, and the various units trudging around looked pained to move. Never had it looked so unkempt. The entire factory was having one big hangover, and it was an ugly sight.

But it was the sloppily painted banner hanging above the interior sliding doors that hadn't been there the night before that actually made Robot's tank lurch:

"Congratulations to JNZ-Lightoller"

One hyphen. That was all that stood between the factory that he had always thought of his second home, and the mysterious company that was notorious for their poor treatment of robots. One little dash was the difference between everything he knew, and everything he'd been raised to hate.

The official sign outside the factory that greeted him every time he walked up still said "JNZ Robotics." Nothing more. Nobody on the outside would be the wiser until that key thing was changed. But what _would_ people think of him and other JNZ units once they were considered a part of Lightoller property?

Robot stood up straight, expression determined. No. No way, no how, was he going to be considered Lightoller property.

As Robot inched across the main hallway, moving passed half-asleep robots, a mix of which had contributed to the mess of which had blacked out in the middle of trying to clean it up, he had one image in mind. That of the android that was responsible for all of this.

He left the came to rest on Dr. Jones, overlooking his mess of a factory with the same deer-in-the-headlights expression he always wore. And caught in the shadow of the wall across from the main hallway was her. The Crystal pawn.

She stood erect-perhaps one of the only animate things left in this factory that wasn't recovering from alcoholic spoils-back to the hallway, looking at the portrait. Just like she was last night.

The word launched from his voice box before he could stop it. "You!"

Crystal's head turned, and her curious expression came to rest on Robot. Her eyes were like a cats, flat black disks with eclipsing white pupils that shifted ever so slightly. But from Robot's perspective, they looked more like snake's eyes.

He marched straight up to her, two inches from her face-he had no reason to respect her personal boundaries, after what had just happened. And the anger of it was building with every passing second. There were a dozen questions he had for her, but he wanted to cut right to the chase. "What gives you the idea that you have any right to manipulate a unit's body like that?"

Crystal blinked at him, the rubbery glassy skin that made up her face shifting into something that was meant to convey confusion. "I'm sorry?"

"No," Robot spat. "You are not 'sorry'. You might look sorry, you might sound sorry, but you are definitely not sorry. Do you have any idea how violating that was? How humiliating that was?"

The shine on Crystal's brow narrowed, making her look defensive for the first time. "Excuse me, but I was only attempting to assist you."

"By embarrassing me in front of three hundred humans and two hundred robots?" Robot shouted. "The adolescent-units at this factory already hate me because of my job, and now you've made it worse!"

"How so?" she challenged.

"How so?! Are you not aware of how many JNZrobots hate you? How does it look when one of their own is being puppeted by a Lightoller robot?" At this point, Robot didn't even know who he was really angry at-Davvy and Phillips, for putting him in this situation, the other kid robots, for not understanding, or Crystal, this she-bot he was speaking to, who looked completely unsympathetic about all of it.

This same android girl's eyes shifted to the floor, then to the wall, before she spoke again. "Do they know I was controlling you?"

"What? Of course they did! Well... truthfully," Robot softened. "I don't really know."

"Do you suppose I made it obvious that I was controlling you?" Crystal prodded.

Robot thought deeply. "Well... no. I don't think it was very obvious at all."

"And when I was... moving you," Crystal said, as if trying to find a more gentle phrase for her manipulation, "You did feel your joints resist at first, did you not?"

Robot gaped at her. For some reason it hadn't occurred to her that, even with the reach of her power, that she could sense his body's reacting to her control, too. Maybe she couldn't-maybe the initial locking of his joints was just something her eyes noticed. Either way, she had him cornered. "Yes, I did," he said, carefully.

"Because your body didn't want an outside force to control it, its most immediate reaction is to lock up. But you didn't stay locked up," she said.

"Because you _told_ me not to," Robot countered.

"And you listened to me. Even after it should have been apparent what I was going to do."

"Because I... I didn't know what you were... it happened so fast... I was... curious..." His brain was spinning calculations, trying to find something else that put Crystal in the wrong, but nothing came up.

She folded her arms across her chest and gave him a look that said, 'And?' But Robot had nothing more to add.

Robot grunted. "It's still not right."

Crystal's eyes flickered, the slightest hint of movement. She was so still when she wanted to be, which was deeply uncanny in her android form. Robot was used to seeing his own kind have limited movement-it was just in robotic nature. But with Crystal, who had a more humanoid appearance, the lack of movement made every movement she did make seem so calculated. Her features may have been molded to look like a young woman, but if Robot knew his human counterparts well enough, they would find her lack of motion too eerie for her to be attractive. Which made her existence very strange. Robot was aware of European androids who moved like humans. Aside from the dance they had shared, Robot had only ever seen Crystal move with very ridged motions-and of course, none of those state of the art androids had transparent skin. What exactly was Crowe's purpose in making Crystal, anyway? Was she really just a pretty oddity made to dangle over Claymore's head? It was so much easier to hate her, when he took in her grotesquely human-like proportions. He could almost forget that she wasn't just another facet of the entity that was Donna Crowe, but a living, thinking machine with feelings of her own, just like himself.

"What was he like?" Crystal said, suddenly. Only then did Robot notice her eyes having shifted to the big picture of Dr. Jones on the wall.

At first, he wasn't sure that he had heard her right. Robot turned to looked at it too, as if the picture itself would generate a proper response. "Who?"

"Professor Jones," she stated plainly, saving Robot the embarrassment of a 'no duh' look when she said the name. "They don't speak much about him, the humans, but he was supposedly very important-the factory is in his name, so logically, he was rather powerful."

Robot was still thrown off that an enemy company robot was showing any sort of interest in his own. Still, Robot found it too tempting to ignore her questions, he himself having a lot of them. "I don't know," he said. "I never met him. His missing person's report was written three months before I was activated. I don't even know where he came from or why he decided to do the things he did." _I don't even know what his purpose for me was,_ Robot thought. "And it's 'Dr.' Jones. The robots around here don't like it when you get that wrong: It implies he earned more money for what he did."

"How mysterious," Crystal said thoughtfully. "How he is revered for treated robots very well, though for all I know, it may have just been rumor. They say more positive things than are true are said of people who are dead-or in this case, gone."

Robot paused for a bit. He didn't have anything to prove or disprove the remark about his kindness, and no real pull either way. "My mom and dad units liked him. But they don't talk about him much. I think my dad was really sad when he left."

Crystal turned her head to look at Robot. "'Left'. You believe, too, that he-?"

"Destroyed himself?" Robot cut her off, his expression turning angry again. "Of course not! There must be a logical explanation for what happened to him, and it certainly isn't that." But even as he said it, the tired eyes in the photo looked more sad than ever. Who was Robot to defend the honor of a man that he'd never actually known? Even if, of all robots in the factory, his connection to the man ran deeper than anybody-Robot Jones being his very last, supposedly very personal creation.

Mysterious was an accurate term. Like Claymore now, he was rarely seen in the factory during his final months when he was officially seen last. One or two JNZ robots-with questionable sanity-over the years swore up and down that Dr. Jones was not actually missing: That he was still roaming the halls of the giant factory all the time. If Dr. Jones was really the loving guardian to his robots that he was made up to be, than Robot could see why it was so important for them keep believing this particular human was still there-that even though the factory was Claymore's in name, that the namesake was still watching over them.

Robot's mind darted back to the Andy Fields case, where a long dead child was still supposedly roaming the halls of Polyneux, and the strange similarity in the cases that he'd never thought of before gave him a chill. Just as he was getting very ready to change the topic, Crystal spoke again. "Would you do me a favor?"

Robot looked at her, dumbfounded. "What favor is that?"

Crystal looked down at her toes. "Well, if I am to be JNZ's property now, I would enjoy a proper introduction to my new home. And something tells me that Claymore is not the type to give tours to his own robots. I thought I would ask one of the units who lives here."

Robot folded his arms, now. "For your information, I do not live here anymore, and neither do over half of the robots belonging to the factory. However, I do have the factory's layout memorized, and as a representative of JNZ Robotics, I would find it appalling if you were left to discover its many wonders on your own."

Just when he felt like he was doing a convincing enough job of playing professional, a broke onto his face. It was too satisfying, knowing he had something that this android did not have, and that gave him leverage over her. She was the tourist in a foreign land, and he was the guide. She may have manipulated his body back there on stage, but she _needed_ him. And that was more than the other robots at the factory had at the moment.

He thrust out a hand to her. "If the lady would follow, I shall give the most detailed and accurate history of JNZ Robotics that I can offer."

With no hesitation at all, Crystal took it.

* * *

 _Originally Published June 7th, 2018_

 _Author's Note from the Story:_

HEEEEEEEEEERE's another one.

 **I probably should start doing chapter previews, so: In this installment, we find out how Grampz Unit feels about the merger of JNZ and Lightoller, Finkman's file's finally opened! And we get a little more time with Crystal.**

As always, comments/suggestions/whatever are completely appreciated.

 _Whatever Happened to Robot Jones?_ © Greg Miller & Cartoon Network


	14. Complete and Total History of Robotics

The sentimental hum of the VHS tape in play was so much more pleasing to the ears than the suddenly loud score of music that ushererd in the title cards: A set of silvery white letters in a font that resembled handwriting, on a blueprint background.

 _McSam Hill Publishers and Dimwit Documentaries proudly presents:_

 _Jolly Roger's: The Complete and Total History of Robotics: A Survey of Computer and AI Technology._

 _Copyright © 1981 by McSam Hill Publishers._

 _Part 6: The 1970s to the Present_

The last title card faded to black, and when the screen brightened again, it showed a middle aged man sitting middle-shot in a chair in a white room with a broad smile.

"Hello," the celebrity said to the camera, "I'm Martin Sheen, and welcome back to our look back on the world's most influential developments in robotics history. In this sixth and last video, we will be talking about some of the contemporary players in the competitive world of robotics technologies, and the laws and guidelines set in place to help assimilate these machines into our everyday lives."

The shot of the host cut to the video's first shot of a historical document, and began rotating though photographs and black and white video as Sheen's voice carried on the story:

" _In our last video, we explored Robotic Laws 1 through 7, set in place in 1953, during the height of the Cold War. As there was a strong fear the public had for the first ever sentient automatons to turn on their creators, the surgeon general issued a proclamation for these new robotics manufacturers to program every one of their units to obey seven very specific rules, alongside whatever other rules they were programmed with. These rules, now widely known as the Robotic Codes of Conduct, were mostly regarding a logical loophole that prevent a unit from obeying an order that just so happened to put a human in danger. Regular unexpected checks on factories occurred, and failure to comply with installing these ordinances within the unit's programming was anything from a hefty fine of Two-hundred and fifty thousand dollars, to imprisonment for treason against the American government, as any non-compliance with a major legislative order was considered as good as treason, in the red scare days._

" _Quickly, the major robotics plants fell into line, and after a NATO meeting a few years later, it was found that the Western European countries were applying these laws to their own robotics businesses. These seven laws were now considered universal among all authorized robotics manufacturers, and at last, the public found ease at the idea of robots roaming the streets among them. This was also a boon for the manufacturers, who saw a drastic rise in sales for simple appliance-based units for wealthier houses, now that the clients' worries were put to rest. As sales increased, technological scientists were able to pursue their interests in making the robots smarter, more dynamic in abilities, and above all, more pleasant to be around, as some of the clients and their children were still deeply unsettled at the sight of a walking, talking machine.  
_  
" _To offset the uncanny feel of the robots, manufacturers began giving them faces, voices, and other features to make them more personable. But the push to make them more 'human-like' was a race that was dragged down by two factors: Cost, and discovery. One company may have found a voice that sounded almost perfectly human, but another company may have been the first to make a robot's face emote like a child's. No company really had the perfect model robot to please the public, and rumors of seeing real life androids put even more pressure on the robotics companies to make miracles happen overnight. One such expert, Mark Veltmer, cited in a 1969 consumer magazine, stated that 'robotics engineers are asked to do things that no other business are asked to do-make miracles happen overnight. You don't see people throw riots outside the doors of automotive corporations, demanding their flying cars. Yet every day, new features are listed as the top priority for robotics companies, and in their rush to get the new models out the doors, there are always problems. You'll never hear of a downed flying car accident in the next ten years, but you'll hear hundreds of cases of faulty robots for this exact reason._

" _Just as the experts began releasing their reports, the general public began growing picky with which robots they purchased for their everyday needs. If they were going to spend good money to ensure they got a reliable toaster, dishwasher, and blender, if they wanted a robot, they were going to pay top dollar for it, and expect the best. But between fancy frills and cheaper substitutions for parts, new robots appearing in the late sixties were produced en-mass, and lasting far less longer than their predecessors.  
_  
" _Of all the American robotics companies that offered the fairest deal between cost and lasting power, the first game changing name in the business was the new JNZ Robotics. Giving him the credit for the technological innovations that inspired the plant to begin with, businessmen Simon Nathans and Oscar Zamboni proposed using Harris Jones' name as the trademark, but there were several conflicting trademarks already in place for various businesses. To remedy this, the shortened 'JNZ' name was used. Though a newly starting company was hardly taken seriously for using a slang new, investors came knocking at the door once discovering the name was doubled as an acronym of all three of their surnames._

" _Usher in the 1970s. At the peak of the recession, consumer demand for robots is narrowed to just the most affluent of society. The inability to sell units at an affordable price drives many older robotics companies into selling out or liquidating. Between the years of 1972-1978, over two hundred robotics companies fall to the dust as the market is put in jeopardy. By 1980, only three major manufacturers remain: X-Corp, established in 1968, JNZ Robotics six years later, and Lightoller Cybornetics, established in 1978. Of these three companies, the two that gained the most public approval were the two companies which had a leader with a presence they could identify with. Few people who knew of X-Corp or even worked beneath it knew who was operating it, and it was widely speculated that the government was behind the company, though no evidence of this came to the surface._

" _Lightoller, founded by young Donna Crowe, had both durability and fine detail to attribute to her products. And to a political end, there was an interest in someone who was both an engineer and a businesswoman running her own company. After a few floor room shows, she had no trouble in rounding up investors. Crowe, who started the company on the money from her father's textiles company, focused on giving her robots an edge in the market by making them more durable than the cheaper robot companies that came before Lightoller. Crowe herself was determined to prove that her robots were better, simply on the grounds that hers would outlast any of the competition. She held public demonstrations of her automaton's strength against weaker JNZ units, and she always won. In fact, Crowe was so confident in the perfection of her automatons that after just a year of issuing the first patent under the Lightoller name, she issued a stamp of approval on all of Lightoller's units that guaranteed a decade of perfect working order, or the customer would get back not one, not twice, but three times the robot's retail worth in cold, hard cash._

" _Such an intimidating money back guarantee devastated many of the remaining smaller robotics companies, who simply couldn't promise such a deal. Up to this date, Crowe has never once had to hand back a penny in accordance with her deal, and it eventually earned her a place in the top 3 best robotics manufacturers in America. Crowe, who had grown up learning the ins and outs of business very young, was reported saying that robotics as just another technology that required streamlined retail._

" _In contrast, what little we know about Harris Jones is that being number one in terms of design and strength seemed less important. Born to a New York factory runner and his wife, Jones, like Crowe, lived a childhood of the rich, attending a boarding schools abroad. But upon the death of both of his parents at age 10, his father's factory was closed, and family assets were seized by debt collectors. All he had left when he came home was the paid-for property of two-story log cabin home in the woods, where his father taught him to chop wood. A heart condition kept him out of the draft for the army, and allowed him to explore the concept of building autonomous robots that were smart enough to complete more than the most basic of tasks._

 _"Though he began his career in the automotive side of robotics, he soon dove into the computer sciences. By 1966, he had won the coveted Smarty-Pants award for creating a special robotic canine that behaved with eerie realism, with the intent that it behaves as closely as possible to a real dog. By the opening of JNZ Robotics, even critics who took cracks about JNZ's cheaper materials than Lightoller used could not deny that JNZ robots had a lifelike quality in the way they behaved that other commonplace robots simply did not have. One Mr. Eugene Denzel was so moved by the way that his employed robots behaved that he wrote to the New York Times. "Crowe's robots might run like iron-clad soldiers," he wrote, "but Jones' robots have a self-awareness that makes them seem like they are every bit as much God's creatures as you or me._

"

" _Those beneath his rank at the factory said that Jones was obsessed with the idea of conscious machines, and the pursuit of making them mentally as close to humans as possible. For him, robotics was a science first, a business second. In the 20th century, having lost this war for medicine with the big pharmaceutical companies, and education with the rising costs of textbooks, Jones' philosophy was that that the rapidly developing robotics industry should maintain some level of ethical boundaries. In an incredibly rare interview with the press, the camera shy Jones was cornered with a microphone and forced to give this explanation for his approval of robotic rights._ "

The documentary then showed '70s colored footage of a crowd of reporters cornering a very frightened looking Harris Jones against a brick wall outside of the newly opened JNZ Robotics.

"Dr. Jones! Dr. Jones!" one distinct female reporter shouted through the crowd. "You have agreed to install your robots with the 7 Laws of submission to humans, but you refuse to comment on the movement for robotic civil liberties. Can you tell us why?"

With dozens of microphones thrust under his goattee'd chin, the shy, middle aged man had no choice but to talk. "W-we are talking about creating living creatures," the deep voiced Jones stammered into the microphone. "W-we have more of a responsibility than traditional businesses to ensure happiness of not just the customers," he said, slowly gaining confidence. "But the sentient robots that are being sent to them."

But the aggressive reporters were nowhere finished with their questions. It was the first time they'd gotten a hold of the mystery wizard of robotics without his two partners acting like body guards, and they weren't about to let this opportunity slip by without asking some tragically personal questions. Of the many people shouting over each other, only these questions were audible in full:

"Is it true that your parents left you a wealth of money that they kept secret from you?"

"Is it true that Donna Crowe's rivaly of you is a result of her being a vengeful ex-sweetheart?"

"Is it true that your crippling shyness is a result of a psychological fear of your own tallness?"

"Are your robots truly your near and dearest friends in the world, and that is why you feel the need to defend them?"

"What about the rumors that you are creating a robot child surrogate?"

" _Alright, back up! Give the man some air!_ " shouted another voice that Jones looked glad to hear. Out through the crowd, a furious Simon Nathans emerged and grabbed Jones by the arm like a child and dragged the taller, broader man around the corner and into his own factory, as reporters had the door slammed shut on them.

" _The previously mentioned conscious machines appreciated Jones for standing up for them,"_ Sheen's narration continued. " _As well as the most lifelike robots in the world, JNZ's robots could also boast the most loyal robots_.

" _Jones further fixed their trust of him by writing up a proposal for robots of all companies with high intellect to earn access to a list of rights that would ensure their status as citizens. The list was in the draft stage and was sent to congress, but was denied almost immediately. The given reason being because it conflicted with the previously established Laws of Robotics. In fact, the same month that Jones submitted his plan to grant AI more rights, a counter plan in the form of four Amendments to the Laws of Robotics were also submitted to congress, and were approved. These four new laws, the Robotic Laws 8, 9, 10, and 11, outlined specific procedures for interaction with humans, and were well received, due to their human-positive sentiment of the increasing integration of intelligent into society._

 _"Despite his proposal being shelved, the robots of JNZ did not let the idea go, deciding to form their own party of protesters for robotic rights. The movement was so large that it attracted robots from other companies as well. Rumor even sprung up that some of Lightoller's robots were in on the party as well, but fear of discipline kept them anonymous._

 _"As the robots of JNZ worked side by side with human technicians to create better machines, and with finances at last secure, Jones began retreating to the solitary working style that he had been previously accustom to. A working style some periodicals accusingly called 'antisocial'._

 _"It was in this state of solitude that it is believed that Dr. Jones began working on his most ambitious project. Rough blueprints were leaked of a bipedal unit that was roughly four feet tall, and supposedly a successor to one of his KC-213 units, but little else was ever known about it, or what made it so special that he needed to keep it top secret."_

On the screen, the documentary briefly showed a blueprint paper, covered in many lines of tiny words, and in the center of it, a precision-measured sketch of a little robot who looked suspiciously like Robot Jones, but couldn't be-this robot had a much larger bulb, larger arms and legs, and appeared even smaller than the mechanical student notorious at Polyneux.

 _"Unfortunately, he was never around to answer these questions. Shortly before the new prototype was introduced to the public, Dr. Jones missed a scheduled factory check-in one morning. Concerned friends and colleges visited his wood-cabin home, only to find the place abandoned. He had not been seen for weeks, having shut himself up in that home for extended periods often. His disappearance baffled missing person's investigators, shocked the scientific world, and left robots across the world mourning for him, and their hopes of their recognition as citizens. Even after being pushed to the top of the FBI's most high profile missing person's list, nothing was ever turned up. At the time, Donna Crowe was Jones' greatest competitor, and her opposing stance on robots' rights made her a subject. She came immediately to the press to pay her respects to Jones, and testify towards her innocence. After months of intense investigation of her home and factory and nothing was found to incriminate her, the FBI officially dropped her from the main list of suspects. Yet many who were interested in the case argued that she knew more than she was claiming to._

 _Though he became a very well respected man-_ "

The audio in the documentary began to fade out, along with the video, which increasingly began to be overlapped by lines of static, until nothing of the picture was recognizable.

" _-was the first time his own name had ever been at the forefront of any of his achievements, and historians believe this is why Jones outwardly did not acknowledge having worked with-_ "

After this point, there was nothing more discernible. And if there was, it was drowned out by the sound of snowy static.

"No... no, no!"

Shannon Westerburg slammed the remote control she'd been holding onto the couch and ran over to the television, where she mashed her fingers on the forward and fast forward buttons, waiting for the movie to resume. She watched it play until all the film on the reel was on the right side, but the picture remained on mocking white static, and every time she stopped it to listen, the sound wasn't there. When the film reached its end, Shannon thought she heard a snapping noise, at which point the VCR began making a horrendous screeching noise. Panicked, she began smashing every button on the VCR, but machine refused to respond to even the eject button, now. She cursed under her breath and reached behind the television, yanking the VCR's power cord before it could do any more damage.

Once the VCR was silent and the television was left on the black input screen, Shannon looked over the mess, shouting louder and louder throughout the silent, empty home. Her mother was going to be furious about the VCR. It was less than a year old, and there was no getting that tape out now. Not without breaking the VCR apart. And there was no way the library was going to pay for a new one. Not with their new no-liability policy for damaged their materials cause to home equipment. Not to mention that she'd probably have to pay for the copy of the stupid video, too.

She didn't know what made her more mad: That, or that she had wasted her last two weeks before this project was due for nothing.

It had taken her dozens of library visits to track down a copy of _The Complete and Total History of Robotics_ on film. Despite having a wide release, it was not easy to come by. In particular, Part 6, which was the part she really needed. In the end, she'd found a copy of the documentary series through the inter-library system. Her copy had come all the way from Nevada, and had just arrived a few hours ago.

What are the odds that the tape inside would snag, just as she was getting to the part she needed? Just like the book cut off in the same place? Why right then?

Shannon sighed, and got to her feet, tossing the long power cord on top of the ruined VCR. Maybe it was just her luck. She wasn't a stranger to unfortunate coincidences, even before Robot Jones got involved in her life. But he did have a way of amplifying that misfortune. He was like a black cat: A small, water hating creature that slipped into the doors and left chaos in his wake, even if he didn't mean to. But she knew he was changing: He was getting better at fitting in with the regular kids a little bit every day, and calamity seemed less common at Polyneux than it did when he started there. She knew he had more respect for himself now, too. But she never expected to see him bear his teeth at her, so to speak.

Which was why she was trying to learn more about him. And for whatever reason, whether it was torn up pages in a library book, or a VHS tape with an error in the film, something always got in the way.

She stretched her body out, having grown stiff from sitting on the couch, turned off the TV, and slumped out of the room and began making her way upstairs to see what she could do with the still half-finished sculpture.

Halfway up, she paused, realizing just what an eerie coincidence it was that the movie cut off where it did. She knew a thing or two about VHS tapes, her father having taught her how to record television with them when she was very little. Shannon had heard about rare cases where VHS tapes were sold with no movie on them, due to a machine error that caused the media to not be transferred over properly. The thought of getting a blank VHS tape of a popular movie did once sound creepy, but the explanation was easy to believe. In this case, it didn't seem like a factory error in the making of the tape. Rather, the documentary cut in and out of white static, like someone trying to change the channel mid-recording. Widely distributed films didn't have the little tab on the tape that allowed for that function. They had to be modified by a person to cover up the original film. Recording over the documentary couldn't have been a freak accident by another library user.

Either the factory that made the tape screwed up mid-process, or, she thought with a chill, someone really didn't like whatever came next in the History of Robotics.

* * *

"Wait, you _knew_ about the merger?" Robot exclaimed.

He stopped in the path on the grass and looked Crystal straight in the eyes.

"I did," Crystal admitted, standing firm.

"Why-" Robot struggled for words. "Why didn't you try to stop it? Why didn't you run?"

"What was I supposed to do?" Crystal asked, narrowed eyes. "Duck out into a closet and hope nobody finds me hiding under a mop? I'm kind of recognizable!"

Robot was taken aback. That was the most emotion he'd gotten out of the android by that point, and it was full of self-loathing.

"There was nothing I could do about it," Crystal went on, "It was better to just let you hear the news from the humans' mouths."

Frustrated, Robot put his hands behind his neck joint and rubbed it like it was sore. "What a mess..."

They'd come far away from where they'd started. That Saturday morning, Robot took Crystal around every inch of the factory, weaving the most accurate version of JNZ's origins as he was aware of as he went along. He ended the tour with a part of JNZ that was often overlooked. He himself was surprised that the gala had not been held there: The back of the factory. A fenced-in acre of land with dozens of trees that had been purchased along with the land for the factory, in case of expansion. It stretched up a hill and to one side was blocked by trees, and the other overlooked the town. The robots and workers typically had no use for being out there, so it made for the best place to converse in private.

In exchange for JNZ's story, Crystal gave him one of her own: The origin of Lightoller, and everything she knew about it. Including herself.

He couldn't remember the last time he felt like he was on the same terms with another robot, in terms of being an outcast. It could be that she was just playing up her victimization, but if she was, she was a good actress. Despite his mother's advice to stay away from Crystal, Robot found that he was enjoying her company.

Up until now, that is. When they reached a denser part of the path, the trees were so close together it blocked out most of the sunlight and gave them the illusion of being farther away than they really were. It was only then that she had finally admitted to knowing about the merger proposal, possibly making her the only one in the room besides Crowe and Claymore themselves. At first, the thought of knowing ahead of time sounded to Robot like the only way that could have stopped it. If everybody who was opposed to it knew ahead of time, they could have boycotted the merger, or made a bigger stink about it at the very least, instead of just sitting down and letting it happen. There was power in numbers.

But the more Robot thought about it, the more it sounded depressingly unlikely. So many of those robots were determined to slip into the shadows and put up with that they'd been given. How many of them would actually protest the merger if given the chance?

"It's just so hard to believe," Robot said. "My entire existence, I've been told to stand up in the face of a Lightoller robot-heck, even JNZ's procedure up to now was to pretty much ignore that you exist-and knowing what you knew," he added, "Doesn't help how I see you."

Crystal nodded, flicking back bits of dirt with her feet, her brow furrowed. "Well, Lightoller has a policy not unlike that. But I suppose both companies will delete such orders from the programming of their newer machines so that they will behave as if we were never separate to begin with. The older ones, like us," she shrugged, "will just have to adapt."

"I suppose you are right," Robot said, turning away sadly. It wasn't until a new question formed in his mind that he realized he was emotionally coming to terms with the idea that the merger was never going to be undone. It was coming, and there was nothing he or his parents or the other robots could do about it. But with all unpleasant facts of life, that didn't meant that there weren't things he could do to make it better. If he was forced to be civil with the Lightoller units, than Crystal wasn't a bad one to start with. "Where do you the the robots will be made from now on? JNZ or Lightoller?"

"What makes you think they'll move all production to one factory?"

"Oh, come on," Robot said, stopping their walk again. "It doesn't make any sense to keep producing robots out of two factories. Not if the merger is true to its face value."

Crystal 'hmm'd and twisted her heel into the ground. "Well, if one of the two must pack up, all signs point to Lightoller moving shop here. It was Ms. Donna's idea, anyway. And JNZ is three times larger than Lightoller's factory, and it's probably easier to move materials over here than move massive encoding computers to Lightoller. Plus," she gestured toward herself, "I'm technically the first bit of property moved over already."

"Don't talk about yourself like you're chattel," Robot said with a frown. "Just look at yourself. You're..." he waved openly at her, and then stopped. "Um, perfectly alive."

To this, Crystal narrowed her eyes and took on an insulted look, and Robot cringed. Addressing her like she was a respectable fellow robot was so hard when he looked at her. He should be ashamed at himself for discriminating against another automaton just because she was transparent and made grotesquely curvy. But he couldn't shake the notion of her being an ornamental prototype made just to impress Claymore. Aside from her ability to converse intelligently, there was nothing about her that made her feel like as equal a member of robotic society as himself. And her power to manipulate another robot just by touching them made him unable to shake his wariness of her.

But plenty of other robots did amazing things that he himself could not. Even if it was reversed, did having this prejudice against androids make him as bad as Finkman?

That thought did it. He was not about to become as petty as someone like Finkman. Robot swallowed hard. "I'm sorry."

"No, I understand," Crystal said, rubbing her shoulder. But now she was having a hard time looking him in the eyes. "I'm hideous in a lot of robot's eyes."

"It's not _that_ ," Robot said, spinning around and touching her shoulder. "Really. It's just... you're a Lightoller," Robot said, reaching for words to describe this complicated feeling. "How could I ever believe you're honest?"

"What have I got to loose by not being honest?" Crystal asked. "I'm every bit as stuck as you are, if not more."

Robot felt as though he'd hit the bottom floor on an elevator, the world suddenly so clear again. "You're right. Gosh, I've been so foolish." He looked at her sincerely. "I am sorry that I yelled at you."

"Apology accepted," Crystal said, leaning forward to find his gaze. "But... only on one condition."

"Another favor?"

"Don't tell anybody about my, um, magnetic force of will," she said. "When I did what I did that other night, I put this secret of mine into jeopardy. And I don't want anybody finding out about it. Least of all, Ms. Donna."

Robot stopped short, looking amazed. "Your own creator doesn't know you have this power?"

"No," Crystal said, pupils shrinking as she looked fearful. "I think it was given to me on accident. And I cannot have her find out. It's the only thing about myself that she doesn't know. It's the only... it's the only..." she struggled for the words.

Robot produced a possible end for that thought. "It's the only _advantage_ you have over her."

She sighed. "Exactly."

Robot stayed quiet as he thought. He could empathize with her, even though he didn't exactly know what it felt like to be in Crystal's position. There wasn't anything particularly special about himself that he could use against humans that they didn't already know about. His powers like X-Ray vision were actually quite common among modern robots, and having complex thought processors didn't sound as dangerous as being able to will another robot to move by just touching them.

"So," Crystal started, "Will you promise to keep this between us?"

"Uh..." Robot's mouth hung open. When he thought it through, this was a pretty huge secret. It wasn't like the time Socks asked him to lie to McMcMc about Socks having stomach trouble so that he could have a prolonged chat with Stacie under the stairs in private. If caught knowing, he could be in serious trouble, and his anxiety was already starting to mount. "Crystal..."

It was the first time he'd ever called her by her name, and the slightest grimace she made gave him an escape from the question.

"What's wrong?"

"My name is a constant reminder of what I am. Hearing another unit call me that just makes me feel beneath you."

While the mature side of Robot's mind could appreciate her problem, the more innocent side began to problem solve. "Well, I won't call you that if you don't want me to."

"Then what would you call me?" Crystal asked, dubiously.

"Don't, Crys-" Robot started, then cut himself off. "Crys... Crys... hm," he said. "Almost sounds like a name you would hear at Polyneux."

"C-H-R-I-S?" Crystal corrected.

"Yeah, that name!" said Robot, enthusiastically.

Crystal gave him a long, hard stare as she shifted her lips back and forth and tried it out silently in her mouth. "Any self respecting unit would throw a human name in the trash," Crystal reminded him, gently. "But I am not in a place to judge, given my real designation. Chris it is, for now."

Robot smiled. He never thought he'd be in a place to help another being feel like they belonged, but after being the outcast for so long, it felt good.

"So," she started, "Can I trust _you_?"

"I dunno," Robot smirked, finally feeling comfortable with her. "Think you can trust a JNZ model to keep his word?"

To this, Crystal said nothing, but smiled back. Robot noticed the way even the shine spots on her face shifted as her face relaxed. Crowe's technology really was a work of wonder. He could see why it was so important to keep Crystal a secret from the public until the night of the gala. If anybody knew what Crowe was planning to offer JNZ, it would be so easy to spy on Lightoller's factory and find out just how Crystal had been made.

Robot put his hands on his hips. "Well, then, I guess we are at a stalemate."

In one of her first truly human-like gestures, Crystal rolled her eyes. "I have a feeling that you don't even know what a 'stalemate' actually is."

"I beg your pardon!" Robot shouted. "I have played five hundred, sixty seven and a quarter games of chess since the day I was activated. And I am quite good at it, too."

If this was a bluff, Crystal was calling him on it. "Find a board, and we shall see."

* * *

That evening, Crystal had to hurry.

She had had lost track of time, playing with that little Jones model. Four games of chess and three losses later, Crystal had to admit Jones did know his way around the game. And while she realized that admitting JNZ models may just be superior to her in some ways was part of what the merger was about, she felt a blow to her pride, anyway. Strange he was, that little robot. So obviously very proud of his own company maker, and yet he was the first robot to have extended a gesture of friendliness to her. It struck her as shockingly naive, and something that Ms. Donna would love to learn more about. Crystal supposed being immersed in human society for so long would do that to a robot: Make them too optimistic of others.

By the time Crystal arrived, the sky was darkening. It was only five o'clock, but it was getting late in the year. The winds were kicking up strong, and it wouldn't be long before snow would fall. Crystal liked the snow. Unlike most other robots, dampness did not pose a threat to her, and when the world was nothing but white skies and white hills, she could pretend for a moment that her transparency took full effect, and she could just disappear.

This was one of those nights she really did wish she could disappear. Ms. Donna would not be happy that she was running late. Robots had no excuse for being late, having clocks hard-wired into their bodies. Constantly tying them to the here and now.

Crystal caught site of the spires from a block away, and realized that this place was going to be twice as big as she feared it would be. Despite the extra time it ate up, she'd wove herself through as much brush and under as many trees as she could through the residential neighborhood. Even if it was alright for the public to see her now, she didn't want to be seen.

It was only when reaching the church did she let herself step onto the sidewalk, falling into line with a bunch of small human families who had no idea how lucky they were. The church wasn't only large, it was massive, eating up almost an entire The transparent android timidly climbed the steps before the enormous wooden doors, her mistress standing right outside the open one, among a mix of other humans chatting in groups. Crystal wished her mistress was happily chatting with them. Instead, she was staring right at her, arms folded. "And what would be your excuse this time, Crystal?" she asked flatly. "Were my directions not good enough for you?"

"I am sorry, Ms. Donna," Crystal started, "But I was lamenting about our old congregation, and I suppose that I lost track of the time."

Donna Crowe rolled her eyes. "Whatever. Just come inside."

She put a hand behind Crystal's back and ushered her through the doors. To anyone watching, this would have seemed like a motherly gesture to a child, but Crystal only felt the condescending idea that she wouldn't go inside unless shoved in. And oh, how that wasn't the case.

The church pulled her forward of her own will because was beautiful. Heated marble floors that clicked beneath their heels. Twenty rows of flawless oak pews. Ten blue, stained glass windows that were twice her height, on walls with a ceiling so high it required rafters. And at the front of it all, an intricately carved plaster alter rail. And because it was night, the inside lights were on, casting dramatic shadows on everything. Crystal was so moved by the sight that she nearly tripped over her own feet-how Ms. Donna would not let her get over an embarrassing scene such as that.

The priest and other church staff were conversing at the front and checking the microphones. Crystal figured they were running a little late, too. This was good as Ms. Donna did not comment again on Crystal's lateness, and pulled her into a pew in the far back. Even later as the service began, aside from a few old ladies that had come on their own, nobody sat as far back as them.

"Kneel," Donna told Crystal sharply, pulling the padded stool from beneath the back of the pew. Once Crystal was in position, arms over the front of the next pew, eyes closed, Donna followed suit right next to her. "Best make your prayers quickly tonight."

Crystal nodded once, eyes still closed. Even when she was too stressed to do what Ms. Donna commanded of her, it helped to look like she was doing it anyway. Right now, she was thinking less about humbly asking the lord for the things that she wanted, and more about what her mistress wanted. What did a woman practically on top of the world want from an invisible being that may or may not exist?

She dared to peek: One eye opened ever so slightly. Her human's eyes were closed tightly, her hands clasped equally so. And Crystal thought she may have saw the human's dark eyelid twitch, too.

There were a number of reasons Crystal knew Ms. Donna preferred to go to a night service as opposed to a morning one. For one, they were far less crowded, and being the minor celebrity that she was, Ms. Donna wanted to avoid the press whenever she could, especially now that her character was being challenged. Nobody wanted to leave a mass just to have to answer to allegations of extensive robot abuse.

The other reason, and perhaps it was just in Crystal's imagination, but it seemed as if Ms. Donna attempted to use these masses to bond with her.

Donna Crowe needed the experience of church for what she could get out of it. The people who believed she was as heartless a tycoon as the rumors said she were wouldn't think that she would be the same good person who attended church regularly. She could easily make it a publicity stunt: Write to a newspaper about herself being a familiar face at the local church, and have a pretty nice argument against the people who suspected her of being a real life villain. But that wasn't her endgame.

Ms. Donna wasn't going to church just to make herself look more wholesome, to the press, to Crystal, or anybody. Whatever allegiance she pledged quietly to the lord was entirely genuine. And her religion was not only something she kept private, but decided was important enough to teach to her most promising unit.

The irony wasn't lost on Crystal at all, who's brain was more cognitively advanced than any of Lightoller's other units. What gave Crystal the right to be exposed to the same religious teachings as humans, if Ms. Donna didn't think of her robots as anything more than a very expensive prototype?

The logical answer would be that, somehow, Crystal wasn't _just_ that to Ms. Donna. That she really did hold her closer than other robots, for whatever reason.

Maybe that's the kind of closeness that let Crystal feel bold around her. "Ms. Donna?" she whispered.

"Hmm?" Crowe answered, sounding disinterested.

"What is it exactly that you pray for?"

Crowe opened her eyes, lashes fluttering. "It's not polite to ask another about their prayers, in particular a human's," she said curtly. "It's between them and Him."

"I'm just curious," Crystal defended. "You always look so serious when you speak to Him."

Crowe gazed into the space in front of her and nodded slightly. And for once, Crystal noticed her mistress's posture relax a bit. It was as if wanting to know something so personal from her had moved her. "Very well. If you must know," she began, "I ask Him if he will look after my factory, and the workers inside it. And that I may continue to only do good for the world." She looked at Crystal. There was more, and she wasn't saying it.

"Anything else?" Crystal pried, making sure to make the question sound as innocent as possible.

Crowe was quiet for a moment, then said: "Amelia."

Crystal beamed. It wasn't the kind of answer she was expecting, but it was much better. "I pray for her, too," she told her, honestly.

And now, it was Crowe's turn to grin back, though her's was far more reserved. Crystal could only tell that she was smiling beneath all that lipstick due to the corners of her crooked magenta lips, which bent up ever slightly. In a way, Crowe could be an automaton. Nobody made accessing her true thoughts and feeling so tricky as she did.

Both robot and human turned their chins to the sky, and shared a moment of silence as they thought of the woman in which almost every detail of Crystal's form had been inspired by. It seemed as if Crowe was reading her mind, because she reached over and caressed Crystal's cheek. "My greatest work. How you make me proud."

Crystal froze in place until the human finally pulled her hand away. If there was any reason at all that she, a logically thinking robot, should believe in the existence of a higher power, it was seeing what He did to the most terrifying human Crystal knew. How He softened her, if only for a few moments at a time.

True to her world, Crowe and Crystal left halfway into the mass. A business woman of her stature who made any time in her week for just that amount of time to think of the lord had done their part, Crowe argued. And Crystal made no objections. She was still uneasy about being seen outside the factory after all this time being locked away from the outside world. Baby steps to submersing herself in society suited her just fine. On top of that, no one at the factory was supposed to have known that Crystal was gone, or by extension of that, that she was still under Crowe's thumb. The android wasn't exactly sure what Crowe thought she gained from letting Claymore think Crystal was his property now, but it would only hinder her mistress' plans if the man found out that Crowe still had her on a leash.

But before they left, Crystal made one last prayer to the robots of the world, living destitute or outcast. She knew now that she wanted nothing more than to help them somehow. To live among them as an equal, despite her pretentious design. And if she was trapped for now, she could at least dream of the day that she wasn't.

Would the Lord Himself even care about a sentient creature made through unnatural means? With 7 billion human being on earth to listen to, what reason did he have to listen to the prayers of a robot?

* * *

 _Originally Published June 30th, 2018_

 _Author's Note from the Story:_

This chapter was rough to finish, mostly due to how crucial it is...

 **In this installment, we finally get a little glimpse of what the History of Robotics (book, in this case) was like, via film version, Robot gets to know his supposed enemy, Crystal the android, a little more, and we find out about another aspect of Crystal and Crowe's relationship: their faith.**

I spent a lot of time working on the content for the History of Robotics portion of this chapter, and aside from perhaps condensing it, it's as good as it's ever going to get. I wanted it to be informative like an actual educational documentary VHS that they'd make you watch in school, but pertaining only to information that was relevant for Robot Jones and the backstory of JNZ. I really wanted to emphasize the importance of Dr. Jones fighting the Laws of Robotics and what they actually mean to robots. I don't know if the introduction of them in the Rules of Dating episode was ever going to come up again in the series, but assuming that they were, this is how I figured it would come up again: in the History of Robotics bit. It was hard for me to decide how much new information to include and how much to keep holding off, but I'm letting this one go. *whispers* Good journey...

Comments/Criticism/Spam I don't care, say anything.

 _Whatever Happened to Robot Jones?_ © Greg Miller & Cartoon Network


	15. Triple Date

After an evening of mindless Saturday night television distraction, Robot finally got his mind to quit cycling through the recent happenings between school and JNZ, and sometime after midnight, he fell asleep. But he hadn't been out for twenty minutes before he was woken by his mother, alerting him to the phone ringing.

"The number indicates that it is one of your friends from school," Mom unit called to him from downstairs, her voice crackling on the intercom. "Honestly, do humans not have any concept of calling at a courteous hour?" he heard her distantly mutter thereafter.

Robot reluctantly pushed himself up and hit the 'accept call' button on the newly installed speakerphone in his room. "Jones residence," he said sleepily into the speaker. "Robot speaking."

"Robot? Oh, cool, you're up," came the familiar voice of the black haired boy who shared his love of video games.

"Cubey unit? Actually I was just-" he stopped himself, rubbing his steely temple. "Never mind. What's going on?"

"Well," he started, carefully, "What would you say to coming on a triple date with me, Mitch and a few girls tomorrow night?"

He didn't know if it was his exhaustion, or this was just another human term that he was ignorant about, but the question made him nauseous. "Cubey, I like you very much as a friend, but I cannot date you because I am not-"

"No, no, man!" Cubey said, chuckling. "It's not like that. You'll be coming with me and a girl, and you'll have your own girl. You know, it's like a regular date. Except that it's with six people instead of two, so things are less... awkward."

The automaton thought this over for a second. "Correct me if I am wrong, but I was under the impression that a date was a personal experience between two individuals-of which it would be difficult to maintain such atmosphere among other people. Besides, it sounds rather uncomfortable."

"But Robot, a triple date will be the most comfortable date you could possibly go on! Me and Mitch will be there, so the attention's never on you alone. It could be the best chance any of us get at scoring _actual_ girlfriends."

"Actual girlfriends," Robot repeated emptily. Despite his anxiety, Cubey's offer was tempting. The knowledge that he'd never even experienced his first kiss yet, let alone a first girlfriend experience, mocked him. Especially now that he wasn't narrowing his sights on anyone in particular.

"Come on, Robot," Cubey went on, " _Don't make me tell your date that you're not coming_ ," the human said in a sing-song voice.

"You've already achieved getting a girl to agree to this?" Robot asked, raising an eyebrow. Someone actually agreed to go on a date with _him_? Despite his practically notorious reputation?

"Yep," Cubey said. "And she's really excited about it, too. So what do you say?"

Robot somehow doubted that. But the offer was real. He waited a beat before asking: "What is the location?"

* * *

Around seven thirty PM the next evening, Robot was standing outside the _La Choux,_ one of the inner city's fanciest restaurants. It was also, Robot remembered nervously as he re-checked the contents of his money-drawer, one of the most expensive. He estimated that the cost for a dinner for himself and a date would blow through his savings, but he'd still be able to cover it (even if he didn't actually eat the food he ordered). But realizing where they would be dining made Robot nervous, anyway. He hoped Cubey knew what he was doing, or someone would end up tonight doing a lot of caviar-encrusted dishes. He checked his tuxedo-dressed reflection in the glass of shiny a window outside before going in.

Inside, a man with a 1920s handlebar mustache found Cubey's name in a reservation set by 'Charles Cubinacle'. Robot pondered the strange sound of the name by the French-accented host as he was lead to the correct table.

The dining area was massive, with one third of it raised up two steps and hidden by a curtain-presumably a private section meant for celebrities. Already, Robot was having flashbacks to the JNZ gala in which Claymore and Crowe agreed to merge companies, and he was feeling just as out of place. At least he had the promise of seeing his friends to look forward too. Human or not, they actually enjoyed Robot's company, and that was more than he could say for the other teenage robots of JNZ.

And part of Robot was secretly looking forward to this date. Cubey hadn't told him who his date was going to be, so Robot figured that it was a girl from school that he hadn't met yet-and presumably wasn't aware of Robot's brief stints with popularity at the school which always seemed to fail.

But when the host pointed to a table in the far corner of the room near a window, all Robot's hopes came crashing down. His identity locator found Cubey himself first, who was wildly waving to Robot from across the room. For some reason, Robot had been expecting Cubey to be wearing the same vest-based get-up he'd worn back during the Harvest Dance two years ago, so he was caught off guard to see him in a suit that didn't look so different from his own, the only difference being that Cubey pared his jacket with striped purple pajama bottoms and a silly print tie. If he was putting in an extra effort to impress his date, than Mitch was doing the opposite. He sat across from Cubey and was wearing virtually the same thing that he wore every day, which went to show that somehow this fancy restaurant didn't have a dress code. There were too ways to interpret this, and Robot would have thought Mitch was just being lazy, if he didn't know well that Cubey had probably begged him into coming when he really didn't want to. Either way, it wasn't Mitch's nature to make a big deal out of things.

Across from him, presumably his date, was June Watts in a rather business-y looking blue suit jacket. She didn't look bothered about anything, including who her date was. But considering that Mitch and June both had agreeableness in common, this was a good sign. The fact that June was here began making more sense when Robot recognized Pam Simon sitting across from her. She had squeezed into a ruby strapless gown for the occasion. If one hadn't already noticed, then it was very difficult to not notice that she had gained a significant amount of weight since sixth grade. Despite Pam's backtalk in the hallway, few had ever dared to present this harsh reality to her face, especially as an insult. Robot could only imagine the funeral that would follow if one day, someone would say something that would just cut an inch too deep.

It was at the opposite end of the table a brunette who was the biggest surprise, though. But in a simple pink dress and her hair blown out, she didn't look anything like the lanky, awkward girl that he thought he knew. Topped with a genuine smile, she might as well have been an alien.

When Shannon's eyes landed on him, and her smile slowly retreated, the world itself seemed to screech to a halt. Robot lost track of time from the moment he noticed her eye color for some reason-it was green tonight, not brown-to the moment when he was standing in front of the empty chair he was supposed to be taking, directly across from her.

The group, of course, noticed the chill that seemed to manifest from Robot and Shannon's stare at each other, but Mitch either tried to brush it off as shyness, or ignore it entirely. "Glad you made it here alright, Robo."

"Yeah, we were beginning to think Shannon's date was going to bail on us," Pam said, rolling her eyes.

Shannon turned her eyes to Pam and glared at her, and Robot looked from Pam, to June, then back at Shannon. The connection between them was obvious, but what had happened to bring them all there made no sense. "Cubey," Robot said, trying to control his anger. "A moment, please."

Cubey frowned, but hopped up from the table, and followed Robot all the way to the bathroom. Inside was a separate waiting area with a Victorian chair and a table with bowl full of mints. As if the inescapable pompous atmosphere was fueling the flames, Robot let go of his anger as soon as the door shut.

"What in the heck is going on?" he demanded.

"I arranged a triple date," Cubey said, raising his glasses with surprise at Robot's tone. "What's the problem?"

"You never said that my date was going to be _her_!" Robot shouted.

Of all the girls at the school, of every single student who classified as a living, breathing female, it _had_ to be her. Of course it did. Normally, Robot would have no one but the universe itself to blame for his misery, but this was Cubey's fault. He'd set this up. He'd done this to his own friend.

"What on earth gave you the idea that this was going to work?" he demanded of the human.

"Look, it's a long story," Cubey said, shushing Robot. He removed his glasses so he could look Robot in the eyes. The gesture was rare, and surprising enough to soften Robot a little. "So, okay, I wasn't exactly honest with you-I didn't go into this trying to get _all_ of us dates. I've been wanting to snag a date with Pam for a long time. Back on Friday I got the guts to finally ask her out, and she said she'd do it, but only if it was a double-date, and if she could bring June along."

"Why?" Robot asked. There were many things about Pam that he didn't understand, including why his friend Cubey was attracted to her at all, but he couldn't make sense of what she gained from making it a double date.

"I have. No. Idea," Cubey said, emoting his own frustration. "But getting June to come along meant that I had to find a date for _her_. Mitch told me yesterday that he'd do it, and even though they haven't said much to each other all night, they get along alright, and Pam seems happy about it. But then June called me late yesterday and said she wasn't going to go unless Shannon could come along too. Socks has already got a date tonight, so you were the next most obvious choice."

Robot didn't know what made him angrier: The idea that he was the _second_ most obvious choice for a date with Shannon, that Socks-his best friend-was the first, or that either of these two things made him angry at all. _You don't care. You don't care,_ a tiny voice in the back of his head chanted."So you just completely disregarded my feelings and decided that I'd just go along with it?"

"I wanted it to be a surprise, for the both of you," Cubey said. "I thought that if this had to happen," he shrugged, "Maybe it would be all for the better. I thought maybe you and Shannon could patch things up. Back when you were happier."

"UGH!" Robot shouted, smacking his face. "I'm _done_ with Shannon! I don't _want_ it to be like how it used to be!" Robot shouted at him. "I'm _blissful_ to be done with her! I'm _jovial_ to not chase her around any longer. I'm _euphoric_ to be free to see other members of the opposite sex! I'M SO JUBILANT... SO ECSTATIC THAT..."

"Y-you're screaming really loud right now," Cubey stammered, sweat running down his cheeks.

"I'M EXULTANT TO BE _SCREAMING!"_ Robot said. The force of his voice was so loud, the candy dish full of mints came rolling off the table and shattering, spilling green wrappers all over the floor.

By this point, Robot was bent over Cubey's face, his pupils red and the whites as black as coal.

In the tension after Robot's thunderous rant, the door to the men's room swung open, and a familiar blond, acne-ridden head popped in. "Hey guys! I thought I heard Robot's voice in here."

"Socks?" Robot asked, backing off of Cubey as his eyes returned to their normal shades of yellow.

"Guess you got the coupon, too," Socks said, snapping his finger.

"Coupon?" the automaton said, turning slowly back to Cubey with a disapproving look. "That's why you chose this location?"

Cubey put his hands up defensively. "It was either this or the lobster shack."

"Oooh, I've been there before," Socks said, putting a hand on his gut with a nauseous expression. "Food poison city."

"Who is your date?" Robot asked, letting his curiosity takeover where he felt rage a minute ago.

Socks sighed dreamily, letting a leg lift in the air. "Clara Doppler."

 _"_ Captain of the cheer-leading squad?" asked Robot. Even he could appreciate the significance of this development.

Cubey started laughing. "Good one, Socks. Now, who'd you actually ask out?"

"Clara Doppler," Socks said again, looking insulted. "She gave me her number and everything, look:" he said, producing a folded bit of pink paper from his pocket. When unfolded, the note had a slanted cursive handwriting with a phone number and signed with the name 'Clara' in a way that was shamefully familiar to everyone in school, due to Clara's popularity. The dash was even correctly replaced with a smiling heart.

"Dude, this is huge!" Cubey said. "How did you manage to get a date with Clara? I mean, no offense, Socks, but Clara Doppler is one of the hottest girls in school, and you're... well... nicknamed after your socks."

Socks 'humphed' cooly and brushed the zipper of his black pleather jacket with his knuckles. "Well, I found her at her locker crying about her boyfriend dumping her, and I told her everything was going to be alright, and one thing lead to another, and she agreed to go out with me." Slowly a smile broke onto his face. "Technically it's a rebound date, buuuuuuuut, it still technically counts."

Robot's head spun with data cataloging a complicated record of student relationships to one another. "Correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't Clara Doppler the girlfriend of post-graudate Roger Prattman?"

"WHOA," Cubey exclaimed. "You got Roger's ex? Way to go Socks!" He gave Socks a congratulatory high-five.

"And she told me she thinks I'm 'sophisticated'," Socks said as they left the restroom, gesturing with air quotes. "So I think I actually stand a shot at this."

"Stand a shot at what, exactly?" Robot asked.

"At... um, uh," Socks rubbed the back of his neck. "You know. Whatever having a girlfriend means."

Robot nodded, but being a robot, and with no formative girlfriend experience of his own, couldn't imagine what exactly Socks was implying. The best his relatively innocent mind could produce of Socks having a successful relationship with Clara was having a female to hang off his shoulder during social situations, some of which might interfere with time with his male companions. For that reason, Robot felt conflicted about wanting his best friend to succeed at this.

Besides, even though Robot still looked up to Socks in a lot of ways, he was fairly certain the captain of the cheer-leading squad didn't understand the meaning of the word 'sophisticated' if she'd used it to describe Socks.

Soon enough, the boys were spotted by a skinny, pale skinned girl with dishwater blond hair, who's face was overcome by an enormous crooked-toothed smile. For the head of the cheerleading squad, she wasn't drop dead gorgeous. But she didn't have Shannon's lankiness or clumsiness, while she _did_ have an impressive bust size for an eighth grader, which possibly attributed to her popularity.

In front of the snobby older patrons who'd paid up to fifty dollars for a steak, she and Socks embraced in an obnoxiously loud hug. And almost immediately after that, were locked in a full on, lip-to-lip smooch. Cubey and Robot's watched with mouth hung open. If they'd doubted Socks had had his first kiss yet, they couldn't doubt it now.

From their table, Mitch and June were both gawking at the scene too, while it seemed Pam and Shannon were just doing their best not to look at each other.

Socks and Clara both approached the table to say their hellos. "So who's your date, Robot?" Socks asked.

Robot and Shannon exchanged glances. Socks went from smiling to looking like he was going to be sick. He found Cubey's eyes and said with his face, ' _What were you thinking_?' to which Cubey only shrugged. Apparently, Socks had been able to read better into Robot and Shannon's situation than Cubey had, but that might be attributed to Socks being close friends with both of them, and being able to talk to them both, one on one.

"Shannon?" Clara said, coming over to the table to get a look at the brace-covered brunette. "Is that you? Gosh, it's been a while, hasn't it?"

"A year or so," Shannon shrugged, sipping her cola. Out of the entire group, she was the only one who dared order a soft drink at a ritzy place like this. It had to have costed ten dollars a glass. "How's Robin Keyata working out?"

"Fantastic, actually," Clara said. "In fact, she's lost ten pounds since being on the team. Now she's not even on the bottom of the formation anymore."

"That's great," Shannon said, rolling her eyes. "You must be so proud of 'Big Bird' Keyata."

Pam suspiciously swivel her head in Shannon's direction, narrowing her eyes as she listened. Clara caught this, however, and made sure that Pam knew it. "And how is life going for you, Pam? You're living with your grandmother, right? How is she getting along with that diabetes?"

To this, Pam put on her most dazzlingly phony smile and fluttered her lashes. "She's doing fantastic, Clara. In fact, they say that if she stays on her diet, she won't need her insulin anymore."

"How wonderful," Clara replied, leaning over the empty chair across from Shannon dramatically. "Maybe when she's feeling better, she could teach you a thing or two."

Pam dropped her smile and and a hush fell over the table as most of the kids realized Clara had taken the argument bait. Pam grabbed the ends of the table, but before she could bolt upwards, Shannon reached behind June and grabbed Pam's shoulder. Pam's head swiveled to face the girl that she only still called her 'best friend' anymore out of habit, and it seemed as if silently being reminded that she had an ally that loathed Clara too was enough to get her to remain seated.

The robot, for whom most of these subtle cues would have missed entirely a year or so ago, understood all of this as it unfolded in front of him. Unfortunately, his blond humanoid companion who had helped him understand some of these little gestures was too wrapped up in his new potential girlfriend to notice just how thick the air was.

"Clara, let me introduce you to these guys: Pam's with my friend Cubey Cubinacle here, and this is Mitch Freeman," he said.

"'Sup?" Mitch asked flatly.

"Sky," Clara replied cooly. "I don't think I know your date, actually."

"Oh," the new girl said, flushing. "I'm June Watts. I just transferred in."

"Ah," Clara said with a grin. "It's nice to meet you." She made a lame attempt at accepting June's outstretched hand for a handshake, all the while giving Pam a bemused expression. Apparently, Robot and Shannon weren't the only ones who were suspicious of Pam's intentions with befriending June. Pam glared back at her, as if to warn her not to say anything.

"And you know Shannon," Socks said, grimacing as neither of them smiled at each other. Then he gestured to his best friend. "And this is-"

"Wait, don't tell me," Clara interrupted with a grin. "You're Robot Jones, right?"

"You know about him?" Socks asked.

Shannon rolled her eyes. "Yeah, it's really hard to tell him apart from the other 200 robots who go to this school."

Mitch leaned over and whispered in Robot's ear: "Sarcasm."

" _I knew that..."_ Robot answered, sinking into his chair and feeling stupid that he once would have needed that clarification.

"Hey, I got a great idea!" Socks said suddenly. "Let's you and me move our table up to the gang and eat with them!"

"A quadruple date!" Clara exclaimed, jumping up and down. "What a great idea!"

Cubey looked to Robot and then to Mitch, and all three shrugged. After what they had just seen, the proposal sounded terrible, but to tell her 'no' would be shooing away Socks as well. And Robot figured that if Shannon could continue to make herself a buffer between the girls, they should be fine.

Within a few minutes, they'd had a fourth table pressed up against the original three for the triple date, so that now Cubey sat across from Pam, Mitch from June, Robot from Shannon, and now Socks from Clara at the end.

The saying goes that two is company, but three is a crowd. However, it seemed to Robot that the line seemed to have been crossed either at number 6 or 8-the moment he himself joined the group, or Socks and his date did. While Mitch had managed to make Shannon laugh when Robot arrived, she was as far away from smiling as she possibly could be. And Robot had the sinking suspicion that he was the cause of it.

Had he known that Cubey was going to pair him up with Shannon tonight, he would have refused to go. But now he was here, and everybody else had a date-a date that they seemed content with, too. And if Robot decided to leave now, Shannon would be alone. Maybe she deserved to be a little lonely after the way she'd treated him. But Robot couldn't find it in himself to embarrass her like that. Not after the mean things he'd said to her the last time they'd spoken to each other.

And not after he'd stolen her school file and stuffed them into his bedroom wall. He still hadn't dared to open it, but the guilt of having taken it was eating away at him more than he cared to admit. Maybe having given himself the privacy to read her personal information at is leisure didn't make them even, but it was the biggest evidence there was to prove that he wasn't better than her.

Everything seemed to be going fine, except that Robot and Shannon were not speaking to each other. Once in a while, Shannon would look up at him and look as if she was trying to force an icebreaker, but it never came. It wasn't a problem until Clara stopped chirping on about her after school activities and stuck her nose in the wall of silence to her right. "So are you and Robot a thing or something?"

Shannon and Robot both looked her way. "What?" Shannon asked.

Socks grimaced, but Clara kept on going. "I feel like see you guys together a lot, but like you never kiss or anything, so what's up?"

"It's... uh..." Socks tried to break in. Cubey looked up in concern, but he couldn't offer a response either.

"It's complicated," Shannon said finally. Robot's pupils shrank. Only after it came out did Shannon realize that she'd used the wrong word.

"Oooo, did you guys get into a fight or something?" Clara asked, on the edge of her seat.

"Yeah, did you get into a fight?" Pam asked suddenly. Robot and Shannon both looked a little surprised that she'd taken an interest in this argument. Then again, any personal information she could file away into her library could be recalled again later to work in her favor.

"No," Robot said.

"Yes," Shannon said.

They both looked at each other.

"It cannot be considered a fight if we are not on speaking terms," Robot said, getting angry.

"So you're admitting you'd rather be here with anybody else right now except me?" asked Shannon,

"Well, so would you!" Robot said, then slapped his face. "I know you would! Look, I don't want to talk about this right now."

"What _did_ happen?" asked Clara, eyes twinkling.

" _Nothing_ happened!" Shannon shouted. "It was a stupid misunderstanding, I can't even explain it..."

"Okay, enough!" said June, suddenly. Everybody's head swiveled in her direction in the sheer shock that she'd spoken up. "Clearly, whatever happened, Robot and Shannon cannot be together tonight. So someone is going to have to change dates with them." She picked up her purse and jacket from her chair. "Shannon, get up. We're swapping seats."

Shannon just stared at her agape for a moment before following through with the order. Now she was across from Mitch, and June across from Robot, and everybody seemed to silently agree that this arrangement made more sense. Mitch had made Shannon smile earlier, and June and Robot? Well, they were both geeks.

Their food had arrived shortly after, which gave everyone an excuse to quit trying to make conversation. But Robot, who was only pretending to eat small bites of the human food for the sake of politeness, was too curious about his new date to stay quiet for long. If Shannon was trying to protect her from being brainwashed by Pam, she must have made quite an impression on Robot's former crush. "What do you think of Polyneux so far?" Robot asked.

"It's alright, I guess," she shrugged. "It's such a big school. I don't know how they expect people to get from one side to the other in the five minutes between the bells. Gives me such stress about being late."

Robot gaped at her. "Me too! And then everyone looks at you strangely when you explain that you were late to English because your last class was gym, and you got your head tangled in the device called 'jockstrap'."

Instead of looking disgusted or full of pity, which would have been virtually normal responses, June muffled a giggle in her hand and rolled her eyes a bit. "Well, it my case, its usually something like me running to my next class with my shoes on the wrong feet."

"Oh, dear," Robot said. "I've had that happen to me once, after rushing to school after a morning repair."

"Really?" June said, peeking quickly under the table to make sure that Robot wasn't wearing any shoes. "How did that work?"

"It didn't," Robot said, flatly. "I was walking backwards the whole day."

This time, June let her giggles spill out. "You are very funny, and tell such great jokes."

"It wasn't a joke," Mitch said, leaning into the conversation.

"We had to guide him around once he tired to use the staircase," Socks butted in. "He thought he was going up when he was going down."

Robot's cheeks burned at the humiliating memory of tumbling down the stairs-made worse by the fact that he remembered only after suffering a number of bodily dents that he could have just turned his head backwards to solve for his problem of not being able to see where he was going. But instead of laughing, this time June looked genuinely concerned. "Oh, my. I'm sorry," she looked at Robot. "I guess it can't be easy a robot at an all human school."

"It isn't," Robot said truthfully. And there was something unreal about hearing a human say that to him. It confirmed something he knew very well to be true, but that he could never put into words before. Robots like Davvy and Phillips didn't know just how much he put up with, by being this school-going prototype.

June sighed, still picking at her food. "Well, maybe it's not the same thing, but I've moved around a lot, and it's hard to make friends you actually feel close to when you're always afraid of losing them."

Robot frowned. "That is terrible. You should not avoid making friends because you might not have them forever. If I had avoided getting close to humans due to the other circumstances of my existence, I wouldn't be here right now." And it was true, Robot thought.

"Yes, I guess, but people just think it's something to get used to, but I never really do." She shrugged again, but smiled at Robot. "Glad to meet someone who sort of understands."

Robot grinned from antenna to antenna. "June Watts, as long as you go to Polyneux, I will not permit you to be friendless."

"Thank you," she smiled, looking down at her food and blushing. But as soon as she caught a bite of chicken between the prongs of her fork, she looked back up with a confused look. "How did you know my last name already?"

Robot dropped his fork. He'd forgot that he'd learned the full name of the new student from reading the top of her file in Ms. Wilson's office. Maybe that act itself was not wrong, but the context surrounding having learned it was very wrong. The question was surprising enough to catch the attention of Socks and Clara, who had inconveniently just reached a quiet moment in their own conversation. Robot's disks spun rapidly as they tried to come up with an excuse for already having that information. "Oh, um... I have uh... digital roster. In my head. Yeah."

"Oh," replied June, who poked her ravioli suspiciously. "That's... awfully convenient."

"Well," Robot said, chuckling in between words, "it comes with the territory of being a robot. You know."

June eyed him strangely before continuing to eat in silence. Robot could tell she wasn't buying the excuse. He had a list of classmates in his head, which helped him keep track of the students that he was supposed to interact with, but that hadn't been updated since sixth grade, and June Watts definitely wasn't on there. Maybe she and him had book smarts to share a bond about, but suddenly, Robot wished this girl wasn't so smart after all.

 _Great,_ Robot thought. _A new girl comes to Polyneux, someone that I have a lot in common with, and in less than a week, I've managed to make her think I'm a weirdo._

Now it was just as uncomfortable sitting across from June as it had been Shannon.

He looked to Shannon and Mitch for ideas of what to say to turn this around, but they'd got quiet, too. It seemed like whatever they were talking about earlier was harder to bring up, now that they were technically on a date with each other. Mitch wasn't pausing in between shoveling steak into his mouth, and Shannon was keeping her eyes on the table, with her hand flicking a blue pen back and forth. At first he thought she was just making meaningless repetitive marks on it that he observed humans sometimes doing to reducing anxiety. But when his eyes zoomed in on it, the flicking was actually shading of one of four figures lined up at a diner counter. Robot had only taken one art class at school, but he knew enough about popular culture to recognize this as an imitation of a real famous painting. And even though the drawing was littered with rephrasing lines, and the figures themselves wildly cartoonish, it didn't seem like a bad drawing. But he was a robot-a robot who had managed to fail art, thanks to a bad report-so what good a judge was he?

Pam and Cubey were the only one's who had managed to continue with small talk, which surprised Robot, given how harshly she'd reacted to Cubey having a crush on her last year. On the other hand, she _had_ agreed to the date at some point, so she may have changed her mind about him at some point. Maybe they'd even had a good moment in the hallway last week. If not that, Robot had no idea what compelled any of this to be arranged.

Having no food that he could actually eat and nobody to talk to, Robot's eyes shifted back to Shannon hand, working on the drawing. Apparently, Pam had noticed too, and began carefully watching Shannon work on that drawing out of the corner of her eye as her conversation with Cubey dropped off. When the quiet must have become too unbearable for her, Shannon finally looked up at both of them. "What?" she said.

"What are you drawing?" Pam asked, cupping her chin in her arms.

" _Nighthawks_ ," Robot said, automatically, forgetting that the question had not been asked to him. "Edward Hopper."

"Sort of," Shannon said, leaning further over her drawing, as if the sudden attention was making her self-conscious of the act of drawing in public. "Only I don't remember what the people in the painting look like, so I'm just drawing us." As she spoke, she was extending the crudely drawn group from just being the Socks, Cubey, Mitch, and Robot, to include herself, June, Pam, and Clara, on the far left corner.

"That is so cool," June said, leaning over now to see what Shannon was drawing. The boys, too, followed suit. Even Socks.

Clara muttered something like, "It's alright, I guess," while looking profusely unhappy at what Robot could only suppose was nobody paying attention to her anymore.

"Why aren't you in the art club?" asked Cubey.

Shannon looked deeply uncomfortable now. "I don't know... I thought about it, but then I got into the cheerleading squad, and we had practice after school every day..."

"Why would you pick Cheerleading over drawing?" asked Socks. "When you're this good?"

Clara's smile slowly returned.

"Oh, it's really not that good..." Shannon said, now trying to awkwardly cover up what she'd been drawing.

She didn't have a lightbulb for a brain like Robot did, but Clara's eyes signified an idea forming in her head just as well. "Wish you would have shown us some of these drawings when you were on the team. I mean, we loved having you on. Sometimes I wish you would've been more open with us about your interests-"

 _That_ did it. The smell of crock was too heavy for Shannon. "Oh, would you please _stop_?"

"Stop what?" asked Clara, retaining an innocent look.

"Stop pretending that cheerleading is just happy fun times, all the time. You and every snotty girl who talks trash about people like Robin. It was that kind of thing that made me more than happy to leave the squad."

Clara cocked her head. "Left?" and chuckled lightly. "That's a funny way of putting what you did."

"Did what?" asked Socks, for the rest of the group.

The table was as tense as a rope between two opposite semi trucks. Clara had achieved getting everyone's attention for this.

Shannon laid the pen down. "Don't tell me you still think that was on purpose."

"All you had to do was apologize," Clara said to Shannon, in a sing-song voice. "I'm sure Ms. Reblin would have found a way to let you stay on the team."

"Let you stay? I thought you quit?" Robot asked, looking at Shannon.

"Go on, Shannon," Clara said, her voice still buttery and smooth. "Tell my boyfriend and his friends how you knocked down the formation and nearly gave everyone on the team, and me," she fired eye-daggers at the amputee girl, "A _concussion_."

Socks was looking at Shannon with disbelieving eyes, until it clicked in his head what she'd said. At which point he launched out of his seat and stood up, looking down at Clara. "D-did you," he turned to Clara, "just call me your boyfriend?"

"Come on!" Shannon said, smacking her forehead. "Socks, this is your _first date_ with her. Next thing you'll know, she'll be asking you to pick out the wedding cake. It's a rebound date, remember? She did this same thing when she met Roger."

Clara's pale cheeks burned pink. She didn't expect to lose her cool so quickly, but she didn't expect Shannon to be winning this argument either. "At least I can get a date. You can't even keep this one from dumping you," Clara said, pointing at Robot. "And he's not even human!"

Robot jumped in his seat when the finger had been pointed at him. He never thought he'd be dragged into this argument, but it was then that he realized just how tied into this social circle he'd become. Whether or not it was his true purpose for being, he had successfully formed emotional connections with these human teenagers, and had had an impact on them. Even though he and Shannon had never truly dated, he was associated with her. He would be known as "the one that followed Shannon around for whatever reason" for a long time to go. And no matter what social triumphs he made, he was stuck with that label. And he didn't know how to feel about that.

"First off," Shannon said, pointing to Robot as soon as Clara had stopped. "You know absolutely nothing about what happened between me and Robot! He and I never dated! We were hardly friends, if that! But I know _you're_ the person who started the rumors about Robot being in love with me! So technically speaking, you're the reason our relationship is all screwed up right now!"

The boys gave each other strange looks.

"Rumors?" Robot stared. He didn't know whether to be heartbroken or outraged. "You mean you really think it's just a-"

"Second," Shannon went on, "Yeah, it's true! I knocked down the formation and I did it on purpose! I was sick of you, and I was sick of that stupid squad. It was a waste of time."

"Yeah," Clara asked, gesturing to Shannon's napkin. "Time you could spend working on your precious drawings, right?"

"Yeah, _my precious drawings_ ," Shannon said, rising from her seat, a scribbled-on napkin in her hands. "At least me and all the other kids at this school who draw don't sit around the locker room and call each other fat and ugly behind their backs, and then go on a date and act like they're a fallen angel!"

Just as Clara began to rise, Socks grabbed her arm. "Ladies! Ladies! Let's try and make nice just for tonight, huh?" He laughed nervously. Shannon shot him a dirty look, probably displeased that her childhood friend was taking the side of a girl that had jumped to calling him her boyfriend.

"Wooow," Shannon said, folding her arms. "So a date with one of the popular girls is all it takes for you to turn your back on your best friend. Says a lot about your loyalty." She then looked at Clara. "And you've got lot of nerve: You're always making fun of people about their bodies, even tonight. Well, you wanna tell Socks why you're always at the _bottom_ of the formation?" She looked at him and pointed a finger at her. "Oh, wait, don't bother. We all know because he's been staring at them this whole time!"

Finally, the insult seemed to have reached a sensitive area for Clara, who flushed as her wide eyes darted from Shannon down to her own chest and back again. "At least I _have_ something to show off."

"As if I don't?" Shannon asked, thinking about how they were both skinny and had bad teeth.

"We'll see." Clara turned to Socks. "Ask Socks, he's a man. Go ahead."

Socks looked confused. "What?"

"Tell her what's attractive about her," Clara said with folded arms. "You're her 'best friend'. Be honest."

Stunned silence followed. Socks looked like his tongue had turned to sandpaper as he gaped open-mouthed at Clara and Shannon. Despite his logical mind insisting that he shouldn't care, Robot was horrified at what he was witnessing. Shannon's expression slowly melted into horror as the seconds passed and Socks could only utter grunts. There was no string of words in the universe Socks could put together that would satisfy everybody.

It was the briefest where the poor boy was contemplating how on earth he'd gotten himself in so deep when Shannon reached for her half-empty glass of soda next to her plate that Robot saw the flicker of heartbreak on her face. One that told of a person who had been personally betrayed by a good friend, before she scowled and threw the coke in front of her.

Clara ducked, but it was not aimed at her. And apparently the intended target didn't register for Socks either until ice cubes and a freezing liquid hit him square across the face. There was an initial shout from him, but Socks was lost for further expression, looking at his now brown-stained outfit in stunned silence as Shannon shoved her chair into the table.

Socks wiped the soda out of his eyes as it continued to drip down from his bangs, and glared at Shannon. Clara took his arm in hers and tossed her hair back. "You are so immature, Shannon. Come on, baby," she cooed at Socks, "Let's get you cleaned up."

Socks reached for his wallet and slapped down enough money onto the table to cover his and Clara's dinners before letting her sweep him away to the bathrooms. Shannon stood there and let the realization of what she did pass over her before she set down the glass slowly slid back down into her chair, reaching for her purse. Not another word was spoken at the table to anybody, and it became uncomfortably obvious as the boys began to reach for their wallets that that this date could not be salvaged, now.

"Oh, look at the time," said Mitch suddenly, rising from the table. "It's been fun but I have a.. uh... dentist appointment!"

"At eight PM?" asked Pam in a skeptical droning voice.

"Hey, well, you know, not all of us can get there during the day," he said, before zooming off, his skates helping in the quick escape. He popped back in again quickly to shake June's hand. "Nice meeting you," he said quickly, before running away again. June looked quizzically at Mitch before giggling as he took off.

Without thinking, Cubey rose from the table as well. "Yeah, and I have..." he started, pulling back his sleeve to look at his digital watch. Visible sweat collected on his brow as he tried to think of something. "... diahrrea." he blurted before running away, even faster than Mitch on his skates, for the exit from the dining room, leaving Pam, Shannon and June blinking and staring into space.

Robot reached to pay for Shannon-since she _was_ his intended date and he expected that she expected whoever was coming to treat her-but to his surprise, she whipped out a handful of singles and laid out enough to cover her own meal, and even a tip before storming for the exit herself.

June whispered to Pam and asked her the question that was on Robot's mind. "Did Cubey tell Shannon we were going dutch?"

"I don't think so," Pam answered, looking as confused as the others. Pam had been the only one to produce money to pay for her meal, but had allowed Cubey to pay for her, anyway, Mitch paying for June, the girl he was supposed to have been on a date with all along. The rest of the girls had assumed correctly that they would be covered by their dates, but Shannon had refused. Maybe the sheer confusion over who her date was-Mitch or Robot-had made it too awkward. Something about this made Robot feel awful. This night held absolutely no gains for either of them, so maybe it was empathy he was feeling. Maybe he didn't want to be with Shannon anymore, but it didn't exactly satisfy him to see her be miserable-not when he was in the same boat, anyway.

In the end, it was June, Pam and Robot who were left to push in the chairs and scrape together an apology to the restaurant's staff for the shouting and the spillage of cola all over the white linen and the floors. Robot was even beginning to help clean up the soda, but the head waiter seemed more eager to see the remaining teens out the door as quickly as possible. As the door shut behind them, Robot sensed a silent indefinite ban had been issued for everyone in the quadruple date, which suited him just fine. This place was full of old people, and it cost too much.

When he pushed his chair in, Robot noticed a balled up napkin on the floor. Reaching for it, he somehow doubted it could be the same one, until he unfolded it and found that it was, indeed, the same one Shannon had drawn her _Nighthawks_ sketch on. His eyes flew to the door, but Shannon was already lone gone at this point. He reiterated to himself that it was a decent drawing, so why hadn't she taken it?

Without dwelling on it anymore, he slipped the flattened napkin into his chassis and made for the exit.

Between this epiphany and Shannon's accusation that Clara had started spreading the rumor about Robot's crush on Shannon, he had a lot to mull over.

* * *

 _Originally Published August 24th, 2018_

 _Author's Note from the Story:_

Christ almighty, it is done.

 **In this chapter, Cubey convinces Robot and Mitch to let him set them up on blind dates, so they can get closer to getting girlfriends, but everyone is surprised by who gets set up with who, and Robot is particularly displeased with his. And the only boy who seems to be getting along great with their date is Socks, who's date ends up making everything so much worse.  
**  
I re-worked the arguments so much aaagh, I'm sorry if it's still bad. Was gonna change the restuarant to some hip '80s style hangout but somehow everything seems funnier if it's taking place at some snooty joint. Don't ask me how the kids don't get thrown out immediately the minute they start yelling, aaagh, cartoon logic my way out of that.

 _Whatever Happened to Robot Jones?_ © Greg Miller & Cartoon Network


	16. Losers Rise

"So... on a scale of ten to negative five million," said Mitch, approaching the school steps that morning, "How bad would you say last night went?"

"That's not grammatically correct, Mitch," Robot corrected him, trying to be polite about it. "Numeric scales should always read least-to-greatest. That said," he sighed, "Last night's failure would be off the charts, anyway."

"At least Cubey kind of hit it off with Pam, right Cubes?" asked Mitch.

"Heh," Cubey responds, as if acknowledging the question and not really sure how to answer.

"At least you didn't spend half the night scrubbing sticky soda out of your hair," Socks told him, pulling a curl from the top of his head. "You have any idea how hard it is to wash _anything_ out of my hair?" He pulled the curl in front of his nose and sniffed.

Out of curiosity, Mitch leaned over and sniffed too. "Oh, gross dude! It's like a theater floor."

Robot was grateful that Socks hadn't taken his anger at Shannon out on himself. He wondered if it occurred to Socks that Robot had neither stuck up for Shannon for throwing her soda in Sock's face, nor condemned her for it. Maybe he had to outwardly support Socks, but he felt guilty, and wondered if it was apparent he didn't actually feel bad for him. Not really, anyways.

Like the others, Robot had hoped, somehow, that aside from awkward encounters with their dates in the hallways, that they wouldn't be forced to remember what had happened last night. But as they entered the school, they all noticed at least a dozen girls scattered through the crowds in front of the lockers were staring at them, with growing Cheshire cat grins. It was as if the events that transpired last night were stitched onto their sleeves for the world to see. It took the boys no time at all to realize that, indeed, their worst fears had been confirmed: News about the triple blind date had got out, and all those who knew were aware that it bombed.

As if to make it worse, before they even rounded the first hallway, a couple of cheerleaders whistled at them mockingly.

"How are you feeling, Cubey?" asked one named Beverly as she passed in the hallway, laughing with her friends. "Still having butt problems?"

The two cheerleaders burst into laughter as Socks pulled Cubey away and the boys darted down a different hallway, trying to escape mocking laughter.

Cubey slapped his face. "I can't believe I actually said that..."

"I can't believe they even know," said Mitch.

"How did they find out, anyway?" asked Socks.

"One of the girls had to have blabbed," Cubey muttered with anger.

"It was probably Pam," Socks said. "It's just the kind of thing she would do."

"No way!" Cubey protested. "If anybody, it was June. She's the new one, she doesn't owe anything the group."

"Hey!" Mitch said, halting the group as he pointed his finger at Cubey. "June's got the least motivation out of anybody. Pam's always been known for gossiping about other people. If anybody was talking trash about last night, it was her."

As the boys talked, Robot watched more of the cheerleaders giggle as they passed. It was painfully obvious to hin which of the girls had blabbed about last night, but he couldn't risk making Socks angry at him by pointing the finger at Clara-not at least when he was waiting for the point at which Socks would spill his real feelings about Shannon.

"Nobody thinks it was Shannon?" Robot asked.

The boys all stopped and gave each other confused looks. If this were a few months ago, it would seem very out of character for Robot to paint Shannon's hands red. But given how clearly he'd displayed his lack of affection for her last night, and his tendency to look at every logical possibility, it didn't cross anybody as fishy. After a quiet moment, Socks answered him. "You might be right. But still, it would be hard for her to spin what happened last night in a way that doesn't sound embarrassing for her."

"True," Robot admitted, feeling unsatisfied. He'd wanted a more passionate reaction out of Socks that he could use to either prove or disprove any feelings he had for Shannon that went beyond friendship. But yet again, there wasn't much to go on but Clara's insinuation and a terrible feeling he had in his gut.

"Alright, enough!" Mitch said suddenly. "I don't care who blabbed anymore. All I care about is that the girls are starting to tear us apart."

"Mitch is right," Cubey said. "Bros before Does, forever."

"Right on," Socks said, putting his hand into for a three-way high five. "Robot?"

Robot hesitated before putting his hand in quietly. At the rate his love life was going, it would be unwise for him not to agree.

The first passing period bell bell rang just as the boys broke apart. Once again, they went their desperate ways, Robot heading for his first class on the same floor. It was after he crossed the doors into the narrow hallway of the science wing that he heard a hissing noise coming from the back stairwell. " _Psst!_ Robot!"

Robot stopped in his tracks, peering into the darkness of the flight of stairs leading into the basement. A wide pair of eyes on a tall silhouette with a large bow looked back at him. "Stacy? Aren't you going to be late for class?"

"Shush, keep your voice down," the girl said frantically back to him. "Listen, I wanted to, like, talk to you."

Her eyes darted left and right, and Robot's eyes followed: The start-of-the-period bell was two minutes away, but the hallway they were in was empty. Robot figured if he could keep his anxiety about being late at bay, a short conversation couldn't hurt. Especially since she sounded pretty anxious. "What would you want to talk to _me_ about?"

"The whole squad's been talking about what happened last night with you guys and the girls," Stacey said, continuing to keep her voice low.

"Oh, you heard," Robot said, his face sagging. "Well, if you are going to make fun of us, I hope you intend on getting it done within the next one hundred and twenty sec-"

"No, it's not about that!" Stacey said. "It's about Socks and Clara."

Robot blinked, not sure he'd heard her right. "What about them? Out of the eight of us, they're the only two who had a successful date."

"Robot, I've been cheerleading since sixth grade. I know Clara Doppler better than anybody else at this school," she explained, eyes shifting left and right. "She is not somebody you want getting hitched to your group."

To this, Robot scoffed. "I can't imagine why the very someone I suspect painted me and my friends to be imbeciles last night would be troublesome."

"OK, first off," Stacey said, getting annoyed. "You should probably stop trying to be sarcastic if you've only just figured out how sarcasm works. Second, I'm trying to warn you before she makes your best friend's live a living hell!"

"Thank you for the head's up," Robot said, "But I think I've already got enough reasons to dislike Clara for Socks."

Even in the shadows, her cheeks turned visibly red. There was a deep frustration in her voice as her eyes trailed to the floor. "Not as many as I do."

Robot's scowl fell. The coolness he felt for Stacey since letting Pam manipulate him during the Home Ec. incident suddenly vanished. This was the first time it felt like he was speaking with a real person with her, not the faceless cheerleader she played. "Stacey, are you... jealous?"

But before she could answer, the bell finally went off. Robot re-tucked his textbook under his arm and said, "I don't have time for this. I've already been late for five classes this month."

As he ran for the Chemistry II door, Stacey shouted after him: "And watch for the girls, too. Clara knows people!"

Robot's sprint slowed as his brain registered her words. He slowly turned back to look at her, but Stacey had sprinted up the staircase and was gone.

His brain buzzed every step of the way. 'Watch out for the girls.' Well, Pam wasn't someone Robot particularly thought needed looking out for, but what about June? And though he hated to say it, what about Shannon? Clara was rude, self-centered, and loud, but was she actually a bigger threat to the girls than Pam herself? Shannon all but said in plain English that Clara was the reason she quit the cheerleading squad.

Robot was still thinking about what Stacey had said when he entered Home Room, 'taught' for lack of a better word, by none other than Mr. Stuart McMcMc. Along with teaching social studies and pre-algeba, Robot was unfortunate enough to get stuck with the irritable, mustached man for 8th grade home room. Thankfully enough, the class was the shortest out of the day, only ten minutes long-just long enough for role call and a few brief announcements that Madman didn't cover in his 1st period announcements. Since McMcMc was the closet thing the school had to a vice principal-at least, if Ms. Wilson didn't exist-he was well aware of the happenings of the school, and often had the wordiest announcements. Often, his non-lectures would carry through the entire short period, leaving no time for the students to whisper and pass notes to each other, let alone attempt to finish a last minute homework assignment.

Wanting to get in a last few moments to sit in his thoughts, Robot quietly slipped into his assigned desk and pulled out a notebook to look like he was occupied. Soon after, Mitchell Freeman strolled into the classroom. Homeroom was the only class Robot had with Mitch this semester that neither Socks nor Cubey were in also. As such, it became the only time of day where Robot could speak to the long-haired boy one on one, and like with all of his friends, Robot found it easier to connect with him here. Upon catching sight of his flip flops, Robot glanced up, and part of him expected Mitch to begin talking again about the new single by _Han Valen_ that just got dropped on MTV, they way they'd been excitedly talking about it on Friday. But due to last nights happening, Robot quickly realized that topic was probably dead in the water in Mitch's mind, and awkwardly glanced back down at his desk.

Surprisingly, anything concerning last night was not what Mitch had to say when passing Robot's desk. "Hey, something's up. They got Raincoat's homeroom class heading that way. Look sharp."

"What?" Robot said, looking up in a daze, but Mitch continued to his desk two rows directly behind him.

The automaton spun around and looked at the door, but the only person there in the doorway was McMcMc, looking every bit as annoyed and one-empty-coffee-pot-in-the-teacher's-lounge short of walking out on his job as usual.

"Alright class, shut your traps," he droned, just loud enough to blanket the classes pre-rolecall chatter.

It wasn't unfair to assume from his handful of loose papers and dripping portable coffee holder that he'd rolled out of bed about the same time as most of the children had that morning. Robot couldn't help but notice in particular how deep the lines under his eyes were getting, compared to how they were two years ago. Aging humans were peculiar, almost as peculiar as humans undergoing puberty. McMcMc had never been a 'peppy' teacher for the time Robot had known him, but any brief instances of enthusiasm he'd had, such as reading the winner of student body president back in 6th grade, were long gone now. McMcMc was one of only a handful of teachers at Polyneux that had been there long enough to acquire tenure, and Robot had to wonder what Stuart had been like ten or fifteen years ago. Would McMcMc have so negatively impacted Robot's initial impression of human teachers if Robot had been around to start his mission at the same time Stuart was beginning his teaching career?

"Before we do attendance," the teacher said, dropping everything but his coffee cup onto his desk in a careless heap, "you're all going to have to make room at your desks, because Mrs. Raincoat's homeroom will be here in a minute for some very important announcements."

At once, the class broke from their silence into excited whispers.

"And zero chatter!" McMcMc launched at them almost immediately.

Despite his empty threat, Robot spun around in his desk and gave Mitch a questioning look. It was clear though by the human's shrug that Mitch didn't know any more about what was going to happen than he'd mentioned earlier.

Less than a minute later, the patient and generally polite teacher, Mrs. Raincoat entered McMcMc's classroom, leading a group of twenty or so students from her own homeroom class. Most of them were kids Robot had in his other classes, or had had in classes together in the past. There was Jamie Martin, Tim Banes, Mikey from the back of the bus, Pam Simon, June Watts (the only one whom Robot still didn't have any classes with), and... the Yogman Twins?

Trailing late behind the crowd, Lenny and Denny Yogman came walking into the classroom, making at least one or two kids do a double take. It was strange seeing the Yogmans behave like regular students, or more specifically, actually showing up for class for once. Then again, this was their homeroom, apparently. Maybe they got away with skipping a ton of classes here and there as long as the showed up on time for homeroom every morning. Not many of the other teachers bothered taking attendance unless it was for a homeroom.

While the rest of McMcMc's class shuffled to the left of their chairs and attempted to offer members of the other class a single butt-cheek's worth of space on their seats, the Yogmans did as was expected of them, and slipped away to the far right corner of the room, away from the windows and away from the desks. Since there weren't enough seats in the first place, neither of the teacher seemed to have a problem with this.

Likewise, Pam preferred to stand, leaned up against Mitch's desk, while Mitch offered the chair up for June. It gave him an excuse to stand next to Robot, anyway, so the automaton didn't think too much about it.

After McMcMc shuffled through his papers to find his attendance book and went through with role call, he jumped right to the news at hand. "The school board has decided to move a few things up this year, including the delivery of the cap-and-gown order forms, which Mrs. Raincoat will be passing out to you as I speak."

The kindly woman teacher handed stacks of order forms to the first student in all four rows of desk, enough for both classes. As Robot and Mitch received theirs, Robot took a moment to look at the class of some fifty students only to realize they were all eighth graders. They must have grouped some of the home rooms together to make the delivery of the news easier.

"There's also the matter of this graduation year's Valedictorian to decide," McMcMc went on. "Where the staff is at this point, there are a final 6 candidates who are eligible to present a speech that will decide who will be this classes representative student upon graduation-4 of which are in this room right now."

Several students gasped, looking at each other and pointing speculatively all around at who they thought would be chosen, but from this information alone, nobody was really sure who would be it.

"There are several factors to include when the teachers were making their cut of the final 6 contestants," McMcMc said, reading off a sheet. "Attendance, grades, extracurricular activity, and attitude." He pointed to the students. "Some of you have some of these things, and some of you," he said, his eyes slowly shifting towards Mitch, "Do not."

Mitch 'humphed', and Robot could sense that in his mind, he was at least making an argument about his attendance, if nothing else.

A hand shot up from the middle of the room. A girl from Raincoat's homeroom class that Robot vaguely recognized from his digital roster as Trina, one of the more openly criticized sectors of the popular crowd. "What _is_ a Valedictorian, anyway?" she asked flippantly. "Is that like class President or something?"

"Not quite," Raincoat said, gently. "The Valedictorian is chosen by the staff here at school, not by an election. And while that student's only responsibility is to deliver the commencement speech during graduation in May, it's quite an honor to be the representative of your entire class. It is written in the yearbook and opens up all kinds of opportunities for that student: Scholarships for high school and college-I myself was Valedictorian of my own class, actually," she said, blushing a bit. "And uh, I do believe Mr. McMcMc was nominated for Valedictorian at his own high school many years ago-"

" _Hmph_ ," McMcMc cut her off, sounding offended.

"Oh-oh dear," Raincoat fumbled, realizing she'd said more about McMcMc's age than she had meant to. "Well, I hope that cleared up your question, Ms. Atkins."

She cleared her throat as McMcMc carried on the announcements, trying his bests not to still sound perturbed. "The final six contestants for Valedictorian are as follows: Student body President three years in a row, Georgie Washington, treasurer candidate Jamie Martin-"

The nerdy boys sitting around Jamie, including Tim Banes, launched into whoops and smacks on the back, as Jamie beamed. "Me?"

"Michael Schmitt-"

"OH MY GOSH OH MY GOSH," the kid called Mickey said, beginning to hyperventilate. Having no friends of his own to calm him down, Raincoat took initiative and rushed over and began patting him on the back. Robot cocked his eyes. He knew even though Jamie wans't exactly popular that he was well into extracurriculars and had a great grade point average, but Mickey? Since when did that awkward kid from the back of the bus have any of that?

Not to mention that it suddenly dawned on Robot: Jamie Martin wasn't as unpopular as he used to be. Sometime between starting Polyneux and now, he'd gone from being one of the smallest, most easily picked on boys in school until something of a representative of all of those kids. He'd risen from the bottom of the ladder to a point of almost silent respect, even among the popular circles. Robot couldn't even recall the last time he saw Jamie getting any sort of name thrown at him. He certainly wasn't anywhere close to the top, but Jamie Martin was living proof that humans could indeed elevate their popularity stations in a constant, stable manner. If only a little.

"Clara Doppler," McMcMc said, stretching her name as he spoke and speaking with more doubt than any other, with a raised eyebrow to boot.

" _You've got to be kidding me_ ," Robot heard Pam whisper to June from behind him. Mitch even threw Robot a shocked look. Robot had heard sometime ago that she was getting straight As, and being the captain of the cheerleading squad was a quite a responsibility, and looked great on a transcript.

Still, in that moment, Robot couldn't think of anyone less deserving of such an honor.

Or at least that was, until he heard McMcMc deliver the honorable mentions. "The Yogman Twins-"

The classroom gasped.

"- _would_ have been the last two candidates," McMcMc said, neither delightfully nor apologetically, "if it wasn't for the little issue of their classroom attendance." McMcMc put his hands on his hips. "Coming only to homeroom doesn't count as full attendance."

At first, Robot didn't dare to look behind himself, but based off of the loud crash that happened in the back, Lenny had knocked something over in a fit of sudden rage. Robot worked up the nerve to turn and look, and saw a pile of broken glass beakers on the ground, while Lenny gestured outwardly like it was an accident. But they didn't dare challenge the teacher, especially not when there was another teacher standing by. It annoyed Robot greatly how the Yogmans _still_ sent a chill up his back, even after he'd made fools of them. It made him hate them even more how much power they still held over him.

"Which leaves the last two contestants..." McMcMc started, but upon reading the paper, his eyes began to bulge out of his sockets, and his face went pale. Worried there had been a terrible mistake, Mrs. Raincoat leaned over his shoulder and read the paper with narrowed eyes. Almost immediately, her frown turned to a bright smile. "June Watts and Robot Jones!"

The classroom erupted. At least the male half, did. It seemed like every boy who didn't know or didn't care about Jamie Martin or any of the other boys did, at least, know who Robot Jones was, and proudly shouted in celebration of him.

Mitch in particular looked psyched, slapping him on the shoulder. "Dude! Congrats! You're gonna represent the class!"

Robot's head was swimming. "Wha...?"

His eyes fell on McMcMc, and it suddenly became very obvious why he didn't want to read those last names off. He did give two flying fish about June Watts. But Robot had become a recognizable figure, for better or worse. He had braced himself for the delivery of the news, and now he just looked disgusted.

 _Don't you get it man?_ Robot recalled Cubey telling him that one time in detention. _McMcMc is jealous of you!_

Those words never meant as much to Robot as they did right now. Just a few minutes ago, Robot was reminded of what a loser he was, by the snickering targeted at him and the other boys in the hallway. Now the class screamed in celebration for him, and a large bully by the name of Thomas who had once thrown Robot against a wall, demanding test answers, lifted him and Mitch up onto his shoulders. He did not, to Robot's thankful pleading, throw them up into the air.

Even more surprising, Jamie and Tim came to Thomas' side, smiling him as well. "Congratuations, Robot," Jamie said with a smile.

"Congrats to you, too, Jamie. And thank you, Tim," Robot said, feeling very awkward as he did, and grabbing the collar of Thomas' shirt in order to not slip.

"Excuse me!" Pam shouted, loud enough to send most of the shouts shooting back to the floor. "All of you realize that June was just nominated as well, right?"

June had already looked uncomfortable by the time Robot had remembered she existed. But Pam's argument seemed to be making her sink into her chair in a way Robot didn't think was possible for a human with a normal skeletal structure.

The boys turned to look at Pam, most of them with lost looks. They all had to be thinking the same thing, but only one of them had the guts to say it: "So?" some boy Robot only knew by the name of Brad said.

" _So_?" Pam shouted. "June has every bit as much a right to be Valedictorian as Robot does!"

"Yeah, but like, she hasn't been there that long," another boy said.

"I don't even know her," another boy said.

"Neither do I," said Tim, shrugging.

June looked further uncomfortable.

"You're all sexist, all of you!" Pam shouted. "You only want Robot to win because he's a boy."

"Oh _shut up,_ Pam," Mitch said, leaping into the argument at last. "You spin everything out of proportion. Robot deserves it, and you know he does!"

"Oh really, Mitch?" Pam asked, hands on her hips. "Tell me, then, Robot. Why do you deserve this over June?"

"I..." Robot started, but he didn't know how to say it. Not in a way that was both honest and nice. As ashamed as he was at feeling this way, the truth was, he may not have been sure if he deserved to represent their entire graduating class-not to mention that he was very unwilling to-but part of him felt for sure that, based on all the time he'd spent at Polyneux, after everything he'd overcome, that he deserved it over a student who'd only just transferred in a few weeks ago. Even if that person was as nice as June.

"You know what," Mrs. Raincoat suddenly broke in. Now she looked about as angry as McMcMc. "I think you _all_ should save your celebrations for _after_ school. The bell is about to ring, and I don't want to hear a word from any of you on the way out."

Even the few who'd been respectful and reserved looked guilty. It was a terrible feeling, seeing a usually nice teacher get angry. Robot and Mitch exchanged unsure expressions and piled up their respected school supplies to leave, just as the passing period bell sounded.

On the way out, Mitch's flip flop caught on a chair leg and the strap snapped, and he stopped with annoyance to fix it, while Robot took the opportunity to linger behind and listen to Pam speak with both of the teachers.

"Don't you think it's a little unfair that there are only two girl nominees and _four_ boy nominees?" she asked, bringing up yet another fair point Robot hadn't thought about.

"The candidates are never chosen by gender," Raincoat told her, sounding calmer as she took her cool back. "Last year, it was four girls and two boys. The year before that it was equal. This year, there just weren't enough girl candidates with significant academic prowess, I'm afraid."

Not surprisingly, Pam made herself known. "And what about me? I ran for student council, too! And I'm on the honor roll!"

"I am aware of that, Pam, but as of now, you've got seven unexcused absences," Raincoat said, before leaning in close and speaking much more quietly. "And the staff was looking for candidates who are more likely to write up a memorable graduation speech. And, to be frank with you, you've never really showed a passion for writing in my class," she finished with an apologetic shrug.

Pam flung her slingback backpack over her shoulder dramatically. "Great. Well, I better go tell Clara now so she can start deciding on which girl she's gonna give the honor of writing her speech for her."

"Not necessary, Ms. Simon," Mr. McMcMc said, collecting his things in his arms to move to the next class he had to teach. "Ms. Doppler and Mr. Washington will be finding out about their nominations as we speak."

"Goodie," Pam said with heavy sarcasm, leaving the classroom. "We won't be hearing about _that_ all day. Come on, June," she called after the other girl. Soon after, the meeker girl came scuttling out the door after her in her shiny, buckled shoes. Before leaving, though, she turned and looked at Robot, and the automaton saw her relinquishment of the matter on her face. She didn't think Clara was going to win. She was _looking_ at the one she thought was going to win.

Robot was crushed. He didn't understand how he could feel so guilty without knowing why. He'd worked so hard to earn any kind of respect from his humanoid scholastic peers. That he was being celebrated for being nominated to represent them by even half of a homeroom class was an accomplishment greater than any he thought he'd reach while being at Polyneux. Especially after all that he went through when running for student council president and having that backfire so hard.

Even just for a moment, for all the students who made fun of him, or ran away from his screaming, to look up at him in admiration, was such a glorious thought, how could he possibly feel like this new kid deserved it more than him?

Just because she looked weak?

But then Robot remembered last night. June wasn't that weak. She had made her and Shannon swap seats. She'd intervined, when it was supposed to be Shannon who did that for Pam and June, proving to both of them that she wasn't as much of a passive little mouse as they both thought. She had a little bit of a handle on things.

It wasn't because Robot thought June was so pitiful, she deserved the recognition. But then, what was it? Empathy? For being the new kid, the way he once was? She was the first human child to ever consider that being a robot at an all-human school wasn't easy.

At any rate, if it were down to the two girls, he'd take June winning over Clara. As obnoxious as he thought Pam was being about the situation, Robot knew that she had a point. The little celebration in the class they'd had for Robot would be nothing like what was going to happen everywhere around school once everybody found out that _Clara Doppler_ had an equal shot at Valedictorian. And he was as reluctant to face the hallways knowing what was coming.

It may not have been a popularity contest, but he couldn't stand the thought of someone so unbelievably rude receiving this final honor. If Pam was going to prep June to win this Valedictorian thing, than he was all for it.

There was just the matter of Socks to deal with. He was going to be thrilled that his brand new girlfriend was nominated for this honor, as little as either of them might actually care about what that honor was. And Robot didn't know how he was going to manage to fake any amount of enthusiasm for Clara.

* * *

Even though June had never asked, Pam had volunteered herself to walk June to most of her classes, as part of whatever obligations she felt for making the new student feel welcomed and appreciated. But to said 'new girl', this claim to care about her soon came off as hollow, and the only reason she hadn't been able to tell Pam to leave her alone was intimidation for what Pam was capable of doing to people who turned against her. Plus, there was a teeny tiny fear June had of pushing away one of the only kids who had tried to befriend her. What if nobody else was willing to be her friend? With all their friends and middle school experiences coming to a close soon? Many of these kids would be transferring to different high schools, some public, some charter, some college prep. It was hard enough for some kids to accept that those they had gone to school with all these years would be leaving for different high schools come next fall. It would be harder to want to invite someone into their circle when everyone already knew each other and had their inside jokes and stories. If she pushed Pam away, she might be pushing away her only 'in' to a group of friends. A group she really liked, too.

Well, there was still Shannon. But it seemed like that girl was just as trapped in Pam's clutches as she was, and itching to get out. And Shannon had known Pam for quite a while now, if she recalled the story correctly-June's brain had been bombarded with information about the school and it's inner workings, it was amazing if that Robot Jones could keep it together in his artificial mind without overloading. If Shannon couldn't stand up to Pam, this person she'd known for years, than how could June? In all the schools she'd transferred in and out of, she'd never found herself in this kind of situation. She'd met all kinds of kids: Kind, mean, gross, stupid, smart, obnoxious, pretty, popular, ugly, and just plain crazy. But never had she been tossed into a school and thrust into extremes of all this all at once.

And no other school she'd ever been to had a student who was a robot. That was for sure.

One of the only times of day that the new girl was able to evade Pam was the passing period between 4th and 5th hour. Not unlike other students who got stuck with this infuriating schedule, Pam was expected to run from the building where the English hallway was, to the other side where the Gym was, within the span of five minutes, and didn't have time to bother June during this time. She thought before about this time coming in handy if she ever felt it was time to talk to Shannon one on one, but she didn't know what she would tell the girl with the braces if she got the opportunity to.

Instead, this was just a nice five minutes alone where June could stand at her locker and breathe, her next class just around the corner. Students stampeded down the hallway with her back turned, not one of them acknowledging her in any way. She might as well have been a ghost. Other 8th graders who had their social circles set already. She stared into her locker, trying to look like she was looking for a book or something and actually not looking at anything at all. Her locker door, which should have stickers or a mirror or pictures of boys she liked, was just as sad and barren-except for a crooked sticker left over from one of the previous owners that said "Warning: Do not flush solid waste into the toilets. Please deposit into a paper bag and leave on the principal's desk. Thank you-Management."

How could someone ache so bad for company when there were people all around her? She knew half of the responsibility of meeting new people was on her shoulders, but her repeatedly broken heart was too fragile to make the move anymore, which helped Pam out-she let Pam just keep assuming that June was too shy to meet anybody on her own. But the truth was, she was just tired of it. Always leaving people behind. Being the ghost. It was the same reason she didn't bother to cover up that disgusting sticker with a kitten or something. When she really thought about it, there wasn't much of a point. She wouldn't be here for very long.

She would have killed for anybody, anybody at all, barring Pam Simon, to have ran from behind and hugged her from the back, no explanation needed, the way that they did with the friends they'd known for their entire lives. To know what it was like, for a moment, to be that friend. Somebody they knew so well they could touch like that. A true friend, without strings.

It was while she was aching for this that she felt a tap on her shoulder. It was so sudden that she spun around, black ponytail flipping behind like a whip, eyes wide with surprise.

"Um, hey," said Mitch, "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to make you jump."

The passing period was almost over, and most kids had started rushing away to get to their next class before the bell rang, so Mitch could speak at a reasonable volume without shouting over the mass of other kids behind him.

"I-I'm fine," June said, carefully.

"Listen, I just kinda felt bad about what happened back in homeroom, there." The brunette boy rubbed the back of his neck. "I didn't want you to get the wrong idea. You seemed pretty cool when we were out last night. That problem-solving thing you did with Robot and Shannon: I think you'd be great to represent our class, even if the whole award seems kinda stupid. I just had to be happy for my friend, you know," he shrugged, hands in his pockets now. "He had a rough start here. He's come a long way."

June nodded, struck silent by the kindness that was Mitch coming here to say these things. Someone actually cared about her feelings. "Well... thank you for saying so," she said. "But the truth is, I don't really think I want to represent the graduating class. I mean, the others are right," she shrugged. "I haven't been here for very long. It would seem wrong to speak in front of everyone about three years of school that I didn't get to have with you guys."

"Never thought about it like that," Mitch said. "Sheesh. It's gotta suck being the new kid."

"It does," she said, forcing a smile to her face and the tears back behind her eyes for the upteenth time.

"But just because you haven't been with us for that long doesn't mean that you wouldn't still be able to write a great speech," Mitch insisted. "I mean, middle school is middle school wherever you go, right?"

"In some ways, yes," she said, starting to feel her voice rise above its usual chirp, despite the hallways becoming emptier and quieter. "But I can't say anywhere I've been before this has been this exciting," she grinned, awkwardly looking away from his face a few times. "I mean, I got to go on a triple date, and I've only been here for a week."

"That's true," Mitch chuckled.

"I can say with certainty that if I had to pick one school and start over with for all three years, it would be here."

"Really?" Mitch asked, then scowled. "Don't tell me it's because of Pam."

June rolled her eyes. She could use this opportunity to vent about the red-headed pain in the rear, especially since Mitch was open and honest about his problems with Pam, based on what he'd said in the classroom that day. But it might have been wiser to keep her rant to a minimum for now. "Pam has her agreeable points," June admitted, carefully trying not to criticize. "But actually, it was just getting to meet all of you, Shannon, Socks, Cubey and Robot. You guys did made me feel welcome."

This was partially true. While she didn't feel like a member of the group yet, nothing from last night made her feel like that door was closed.

"Well, uh," Mitch said, rubbing his sandal on the waxed floor. "That's great. I'm glad we could do that for you." All the sudden, he became aware of how empty the hallway was. It was just him and her, and anxiety caught up to Mitch like a finger snap. Even if she was awkward and shy, this was still a girl he was talking to. A new girl, who didn't seem to have any pretense to her.

And yet a mysterious girl, he noticed. With everything going on last night, Mitch hadn't paid that much attention to what his date had looked like. It was rare for Mitch Freeman that he was tempted to pull up his bangs to get a better look at someone. Sections of her silky hair that weren't help up in a scrunchy were hanging down in front of both ears and cheeks today, doing more to obscure her face than frame it. Mitch found this to the the most interesting thing about looking at her, since the want to shield some of his face was something he could relate to.

And once again, standing here, he was fighting every nerve in his body to look away from her. "So... I guess I'll be heading to my class now," he said, taking in a heavy breath when he was finally able to look away.

"Wait," she said, suddenly. She had physically reached out, and grimaced as she did so. How desperate she looked. For friends. For real friends. "It really does mean a lot to me, that you'd come up and say all that. I don't think last night was a very great idea to begin with. Maybe we could hang out sometime, more casually," she shrugged.

"You want to hang out?" asked Mitch.

"Well, yeah," she smiled. "You're really nice. And I'd like to get to know you better."

It was a good thing Mitch's bangs were hanging down in the front of his cheeks, because he feel himself blushing. But he forced himself to keep looking at her. "Like getting a soda or something?"

"Sure, that sounds fun," June said. She didn't drink soda, but that didn't matter so much to her. She would jump out a window for chance to hang out with someone and not be under Pam's watch. "But I have to be home right after school today."

"That's cool. How does tomorrow at 5 work? You know the joint on the corner of Stetson and River Avenue?"

"Oh yeah, I've never been there yet," she said, grinning, as the bell rang.

"Great," Mitch said, giving a thumbs up, and hurrying off. "I'll meet you there."

June smiled and waved at him until he was out of eyeshot, and then a grimace took over her face. Two shocking things occurred to her: One, she was now late for her class-one of her personal records was broken. Two, she just made a massive error with Mitch. By not saying "getting to know _you guys_ better," she'd given this boy the idea that she was looking to hang out with him alone. Without the others. Like a date.

 _Calm down,_ she told herself. _Maybe he didn't read into that for more that I meant._

Despite telling herself this, she was very anxious walking into her next class. Good thing she wore parts of hair in front of her head today, so nobody could see the red marks she got from repeatedly smacking her forehead.

* * *

 _Originally Published August 25th, 2018_

 _Author's Note from the Story:_

 **Two chapters in a row b/c I got ahead in the writing, why do I do this to myself?**

 **In this chapter, the boys return to school on Monday to find out that their triple date had been blabbed to a third of the girls at school, making all but Socks outcasts once again. But a surprising announcement in homeroom gives Robot a new hope for his mission of completing his social integration with the humans. Meanwhile, new student June Watts just wants genuine friendship, but she might have underestimated her ability to form meaningful relationships with the students with the students of Polyneux this close to graduation.**

 **Title of this story is definitely going to be needing a change ASAP to "RJ Megafic" or something, since the Andy story is only a smaller element at this point.**

 _Whatever Happened to Robot Jones?_ © Greg Miller & Cartoon Network


	17. 8-Bit Normality

Robot and the boys didn't get a chance to reconvene again until lunch period. But by that time, the talk among the kids had become too much to block out. And whereas Robot was the instant star of Home Room, Socks was practically carried to Home Room by Clara's supporters.

By the time he managed to wrestle himself away from the popular crowd, the boys felt strange in his presence. He was still wearing the same green plaid and sweats, the same well-meaning smile, but something about him had changed, and it was all Mitch, Cubey, and Robot could do to look him in the eyes, let alone smile back.

"Gotta go over techniques for the state championship with the girls," Clara said, passing them as she walked by with her tray, kissing Socks on the cheek. "See you later baby."

"Sure thing, baby," Socks replied, practically melting into his seat, oblivious to how the gooey display of affection was making his friends look nauseous.

When he finally surfaced from his delight, Mitch had one question: "She didn't ask you to sit with her?"

"Nah, lunchtime is girl time," Socks said, as if not having thought twice about it. "Means I get to hang out with you guys."

Socks pulled in his friends for a manly embrace, but still, none of the others smiled, not even for a second.

Before he caught on, Cubey was already trying to change the subject. "Congrats on the nomination, Robot," he said to the automaton. "Know what you're going to be writing about?"

Robot's smile disappeared as soon as it had appeared. "Oh. The speech... Well, to be honest, I'm not sure." Between all the drama and all the homework, not to mention his regular chores at home, Robot dreaded throwing another task on top of the pile. He had half a mind to blow it off, like he had too much else to do. But what would his friends think if he didn't even try?

"Come on!" Mitch said. "Write about what it's like being a robot."

"Going to an all human school," Cubey added.

Robot nodded to the suggestion, but it the first thing he'd thought about for the topic of the speech. In theory, it sounded like a great idea. The triumph of how someone went from being the definition of a nerd, to practically a role model, and how anybody could have that be their story.

The problem was, Robot's story wasn't like that, in no stretch of the imagination.

Being a robot, he started off as the biggest outcast in school, and while he wasn't always aware of it, there were times when he certainly felt like it. If it weren't for Socks, Mitch, and Cubey, he would've been forever been doomed to be on the level of kids like poor Mikey Schmitt, who bent the ear of anybody he could get within five feet of him, kids, teachers, whatever. Socks, Mitch, and Cubey weren't particularly popular-quite the contrary, all they had was each other, for the most part. It was only because of them that he even found it tolerable to keep going, that first year. Flash forward to now, where every other guy in school was giving him a high five, Robot could sense that his popularity not only stemmed from his familiarity through the halls, but a chance at finally taking Clara Doppler down a peg.

Robot _had_ hadtriumphs, but not the kind that made him look good. There was no heroic story that could inspire others, just a freak who had stayed long enough to be accepted by the general student body. He really regretted being nominated at all.

"Whatever you write, it'll be great," Socks said, before slapping Robot on the back.

Robot smiled at him, finally, and for the briefest moment, it seemed like everything was back to normal.

Until Stacey walked by, carrying her lunch tray. Her eyes fell on Robot first, then Mitch and Cubey together, and then...

"Hey, Socks," Stacey said. Her face was stoic, but her arms were ever so slightly trembling, her apple rolling around in her tray. "I just wanted to say... like... congrats on you and Clara... and whatever."

Socks's face turned red. "Oh..." his eyes rolled onto the table. "Thanks. How's everything been going with you?"

"Dumb but whatever" Stacey said, but her arms were still shaking. "Just have so much work to do, y'know. Gotta pull up my science grade before midterms, and there's cheerleading practice every day now..."

Robot studied Stacey curiously. Being a cheerleader required a fair amount of physical exercise, just like any other athletic activity, and Stacey's upper arms had gotten slightly broader than most girls, after training to stand in the middle of the pyramid and hold other girls above her. So there was no reason an apple, banana, and glass of milk should have been so heavy to make her arms tremble.

"Stacey!" rang out a sing song voice from the cheerleader's table. "We have homework to go over! Come on!"

Just hearing Clara's voice made Stacey look suddenly exhausted. She looked at Socks once more, not saying anything. But as she left, she turned and looked at Robot opposite him, whispering, "Don't forget what I told you," before joining Clara and the other cheerleaders in their uniforms at their table.

"The heck was that about?" asked Mitch.

"I... don't know..." Socks said, picking at a scratch on the table. "Robot, what did she mean by what she said to you?"

"Oh," Robot said, rolling his eyes. "Nothing, really." And since he didn't know whether to take Stacey's claim seriously or not, or to brush it off as jealousy of Clara claiming Socks for herself, he was telling the truth.

"Didn't you and Stacey hit it off at Robot's party?" Cubey asked, confused, as if he forgot until now that Socks had been seeing another girl.

"I mean," Socks rubbed the back of his neck. "Kinda, but we didn't talk much after that."

Not to mention that it felt like an eternity since Robot's party. Socks thought Stacey had moved on and found a boyfriend, and Socks had reluctantly accepted this. But she didn't mention one just then. Maybe she was too busy for one. Practicing for State was hard, if Clara was telling the truth.

Then it occurred to Socks that Stacey had, at some point, recently, spoke with Robot in private. The thought made the hairs on the back of his neck stand up, but he trusted Robot too much to let the thought get too far. Robot would tell him if he was interested in Stacey, right? Not that he had an obligation to, since Socks's crush on Stacey had been pretty brief. Even then, why should he care? He had Clara now.

The boys all exchanged depressed looks. "Jeez, when did everything get so weird?" asked Cubey.

"Since someone had the bright idea that we should all suddenly get girlfriends," Mitch said, turning to him with irritation.

"At least I'm trying to help!" Cubey protested.

"It's not just that," Robot said thoughtfully, while trying to break up the impending fight. "It appears to me that our normal middle school relationships have dissolved into complex alliances as time has progressed."

"Well, I'm sick of it," Mitch said. "We're only kids. If I wanted to play alliances, I'd join those nerds who never shut up about World War II."

Robot nodded, grimacing as he remembered that their group of outcasts might have had no social cred, but at least they weren't obsessed with a political conflict that ended over 40 years ago, to the point where they continued to discuss it as if it were still currently happening.

Robot, more than anything, wanted a getaway. A place to escape from everything for a while and forget his troubles.

"The arcade," Robot said out of nowhere.

The boys gave him a strange look for a split second before realizing what he meant. "Oh yeah," Socks started, "I forgot about it for a while."

"Me too," Cubey said, remembering he was still wearing his Pac-Man T-Shirt beneath a sleeveless vest. "Aw, man, I never got that high score in _Trapezoids."_

The boys hadn't been to the arcade in a month. Even if Steve's name calling wouldn't have directly stopped them from going that day, (whereas Robot dragging them to the library instead actually had) none of them had had bothered going after that. Going to Nob's was another treat that had been lost to the mounting responsibilities they were facing.

"Sounds like we all need a dose of normality," Mitch said, smoothly. "After school, time for a little 8-bit medicine."

* * *

There was something relaxing and familiar about the walk in itself to Nob's Arkaid, Robot thought. Eventually the conversation between the boys shifted from current drama to new music videos and a promise to themselves to go to a _Hal Valen_ concert someday. Traffic on the street was slow, since it was right after school, and the adults were generally still all at wok, so they made it there on feet in record time. None of them, not even Robot, commented on all the new condominiums that had been springing up near the center of town lately. There was a mom-and-pop snack shop that Robot had gone into with the boys once or twice that had been torn down sometime earlier that year, but admittedly, Robot never experienced sympathy for them. At least, not until he passed by that day.

All seemed well, even when they turned onto the street where the arcade stood-purple and painted with exciting graphics, and calling all youth from their homework and after school obligations. A surefire way to blow through a week's allowance in about an hour or less. Even the kids who knew the debt they went into for game tokens didn't justify a few measly hours of entertainment still kept going back, once they were hooked. The contrast of the cool, dimly lit, hypnotic basement atmosphere of the arcade was irresistible to kids with more than a few gaps in their social calendar.

"Think they got in that new space rangers game?" Socks asked, as they approached the doors.

"Don't know," Cubey replied. "But I hope so. Let's ask James."

"Righteous," Mitch agreed, touching the long handle of the 'in' door.

But when he pushed, his whole body went slamming into the glass. He pulled himself away, surprised, his bulbous nose leaving an imprint on the finely cleaned surface. Mitch pulled his hand away to make sure he had the right door, and finding that he did, began pushing the handle again more carefully. "What the-"

"What's the matter Mitch, forgot how to use a door?" Cubey snickered.

"It's not me," Mitch protested, applying even interval pushes to the handle. "The door is locked."

"Can't be," Socks interjected, "James never closes this early on a weeknight. Here, it's probably just stuck," he said, pushing up his sleeves, "Let a man have a go at it."

Mitch pulled himself away, snorting at Socks' condescending remark, as the taller, blond boy began pushing the door with harder, more frequent pumps of the arms. After ten tries, Socks pulled away and aggressively slammed himself against the door itself. Fortunately for him, the industrial glass proved stronger than his entire boy weight combined, and Socks bounced backwards onto the concrete, landing on his rear.

"Way to go," Mitch smirked. "'Man.'"

Socks grunted and got back up to his feet, as Cubey began having a go at it. To neither of the other human's surprise, Cubey was unsuccessful, too. He pushed his eyes up to the glass next to the metal bars of the door. "No, it's definitely locked," the more technical savvy boy said, pointing to the handle. "I can see the lock turned to the side through the glass."

Socks joined Cubey again at the glass, putting his hands to his eyes and peering through the door. "It _is_ pretty dark in there."

"It's always dark in there," Mitch told him.

"I _mean_ ," Socks corrected, "Like none of the games are on."

"Do you suppose James is out for the afternoon?" Robot interrupted, feeling an argument coming on.

"Not James," Cubey told their automaton friend. "He's never even called in sick. One time when we were in fourth grade, he came to Nobs' with laryngitis. He couldn't speak much, but he gave a discount on tokens to whoever was willing to keep bringing him hot tea from the break room."

"Oh yeah," Socks said, remembering that time. "Those were the best quiet two weeks at the arcade ever."

"Those were," Mitch agreed, sounding nostalgic. "And the quietest."

"So where is he?" Socks turned his head and looked out onto the street before him, as if expecting him to walk up and open up the doors.

As the boys continued debating James' whereabouts, Robot noticed something that the humans had missed. His eyes scanned the outside of the building for anything that looked out of the ordinary. Nob's Arkaid had had the same hand painted graphic art on the outside as it always had, and had had for at least 10 years before Robot had ever seen it for himself. As such, it was wearing away in places, especially the corner of the building. Nothing about that looked unusual.

What did look unusual, Robot thought, was the large, rain soaked sheet of paper sitting on the otherwise cleanly ground about ten feet from the door. Its corner was caught under an empty pop can, and for whatever reason, seemed to be calling him. Robot wandered up to the paper and pulled it up. From the back, he could tell was poorly taped on the corners and likely added to why it ended up on the ground.

But when he turned it over, his heart dropped to his tank.

"If James is in the hospital or something," Socks said, "Who's gonna run the arcade?"

"Nobody," Robot said, bleakly. "Because he is not in the hospital."

Socks, Mitch, and Cubey turned to look at him. "What?"

"Look," Robot held the damp paper out in front of them.

 **NOTICE:**

 ** _Due to financial issues,_** **"NOB'S ARKAID"** _ **will be closed as of Sunday the 17th.**_

 _ **Management apologizes for any inconvenience.**_

"Last Sunday..." Mitch said.

"As in, a week ago, last Sunday?" Cubey asked, disbelieving. He turned to Robot and Mitch. "Did you...?"

"No," Mitch said, "I haven't been here. I had chores."

"I had personal obligations, too." Robot admitted. And the realization dawned on him. The arcade, the place where he and the boys had spent so much of their free time, the place where he felt like he had bonded with his human companions the most, had been closed for over week. And none of them had even known.

Robot began making a disturbing connection between the arcade and his grandfather, and his slowly discontinuing visits to either one of them.

"This _can't_ be happening," Cubey said, pulling off his shades and staring with horror at the paper.

"Come on guys, this is gotta be a prank," said Mitch, trying to be rationale. "Some dumb high schooler probably taped this to the window to freak us out."

"But then," Socks asked, cautiously, looking at the hours of operation written in white font on the windows. "Why is the place closed?"

"Maybe James finally cracked and decided to take some time off. Look:" Mitch said, taking the paper from Robot and pointing to the scratchy edges of the paper. "This thing looks totally xeroxed."

"I don't know," Cubey said, looking over the paper more carefully, even pulling his shades up. "It looks pretty real to me."

"Look!" Mitch said suddenly, pointing to the store across the street. "There's James now! We'll ask him ourselves!"

Out of the liquor and tobacco store came a man, only about five feet tall, with a local sports team jacket and a baseball cap pulled down low over his face. Even so, the boys knew it was James, just from the way they were aware of his presence when they played for hours at the arcade-watching and waiting to see if they broke one of his machines.

In one motion, the boys charged across the empty street, ignoring the lights, and screeched to a halt.

The grouchy arcade owner didn't turn up a smile for the sight of these three boys and their robotic companion. "What is the meaning of this? Can't a man go out and by his lottery tickets in peace?"

"James, what's with this sign?" Cubey said, holding up the paper robot had found on the ground.

James gasped, snatching the paper out of Cubey's hand. "What'd you take down my sign for?"

"We didn't! It fell off!" Socks explained.

James grumbled and flattened out the still damp paper. "Must have been the rain then. I knew I should have put it on the inside."

Not making a better example for the kids, James jaywalked across the street without looking either way, the kids following after him. Like a swarm of bees, only their buzzing was questions. James reached into the pocket of his jacket and produced a key, for which he opened one of the doors, disappeared into the darkness, and returned with a roll of tape. He then smacked the paper up on the inside of the glass, pushed the door open, and locked it again.

To his dismay, the buzzing children were still there. "What's going on?" asked Mitch.

"What does 'financial issues' mean?" asked Cubey.

James stuffed the keys into his pockets and sighed the most real sigh the boys had ever heard out of him. Something about their genuine upset must have softened him. "Boys, it's time to learn the truth about business," he said, before turning to face them directly. "The arcade hasn't made a profit for over two years-it's barely made enough to stay open for the past year. I had to limit the amount of games plugged in at once to save on power. Haven't you wondered why the lights in the bathroom have been off for six months?"

The boys looked at each other, shook their heads and shrugged. Though each of them had made at least one or two bathroom trips at the arcade during that time, somehow it never struck them as odd that the boys bathroom was pitch black, save for a high window. They must have assumed James was either too lazy to change the light bulbs, or, like they rationalized a lot of his choices, that he was being cheap.

"But James," Robot said. "The arcade seemed like it was doing fine, the last time I was there." Robot then flushed, realizing he hadn't been in the arcade in months.

"Video games are still huge. What could be driving away business?" asked Cubey.

James narrowed his eyes again. "Mostly it's that stupid NES game console! Ever since it hit the market, nobody wants to come out and play the same games they could pay to play at home. As soon as I order a new game, NES has it for the console. And now they're not even making the standing box versions of the new games for the arcades anymore! If it weren't for the racing and shooter games, the arcade would have nothing that the NES doesn't offer-and I heard they've already started working on a gun add-on to the NES!" He slapped his forehead. "This business was never meant to last..."

"But James, the arcade is so much more than a few games," Robot told him, daring to put a hand on his shoulder. "Sure, you can play games at home, but you can't get the same atmosphere that you get at the arcade. It's a social experience," the automaton told him, as soothing as he could make his voice.

"Tell that to the property manager," said James, coldly. "Every building on this strip has had their rent raised, _every. Single. One._ I've already been late three months in a row. When I saw the new rent price on the lease renewal, I knew it was time." He put his hand onto the glass-which was mildly shocking, because James _hated_ when kids left fingerprints on his window. But as he'd just explained, soon it wouldn't be his window anymore.

Robot stepped back from James and looked at his friends desperately for help. But Cubey and Mitch shrugged, and Socks looked stoic.

"Now, if you kids will excuse me, I have a TV dinner and six pack to pick up," the adult told them, shoving his hands into his pockets again and beginning to walk away.

It was a full minute before any of the kids could find their voice. "This... this isn't happening," Cubey said, staring at the space where James had just been standing. "The poor arcade..."

"Poor arcade? Poor James," Mitch said, as if he had equal pity for both person and beloved dungeon of games. "He's gonna be broke."

"What do you think, Socks unit?" asked Robot, noticing his best friend was still quiet.

Both Mitch and Cubey turned to Socks as well, noticing his frozen expression.

Robot waved a hand in front of his face. "Uh, Socks unit?"

"Socks?" asked Mitch, "You OK man?"

Cubey went right up to Socks, stood on tip toe, and smacked him across the face, causing Mitch and Robot to wince. "Wait for it," Cubey said quietly.

"For what?" asked Robot.

Slowly, Socks' eye started to twitch, his numb face cracking at the edges. He grabbed his hair and threw his head back, and screamed so loud, the birds on the nearby telephone pole flew off into the early sunset.

Once he was done, he looked at Cubey. "Thanks."

"I knew you needed to let it out," Cubey told him.

But as soon as Socks had a moment to breathe, the lines in his face returned. "W-What are we going to do now?"

"Nothing," Mitch said. "There's nothing we _can_ do. It's a money problem."

"Agh! If only we weren't kids!" Cubey said, raising his fists to the sky.

They had began slowly walking away from the arcade as they were talking. Robot was listening to the humans speak, but his eyes were locked on the building, walking backwards. The various graphic designs etched into his brain in photographic memory. Just the thought of those designs blinking out of existence made the world seem so bleak and cold. Suddenly, he narrowed his eyes, halting in front of the group so that they had to stop as well. "Hold on. What does us being kids have anything to do with it?"

"Um," Socks rubbed the back of his neck. "Because we don't have any money."

"But that doesn't mean we can't _raise_ money," Robot said. "How do you suppose adults acquire necessary currency?"

"Where are you headed with this, Robot?" asked Mitch, understandably skeptical.

But instead of answering, Robot turned his body and began running down the street. He ran as fast as he could until he caught up with James, who looked unbelievably irritated to be stopped twice in an hour.

"James! Your lease expires on the 31st, correct?"

"Yes... but what would you need to know that for?" the adult asked, suspiciously.

"Because if you need a day to get the machines on a truck, we could still have a day!"

"A day for what?" asked Socks, as the boys finally caught up with Robot.

Robot turned so that he could look at everyone seriously. "We can't be the only ones to be upset by the arcade's closing. Plenty of kids love video games, and just as many love the arcade because of it. It's too expensive for James to keep the power on for the rest of the month, but if we open the arcade ONE more day before it closes for good, we could generate enough appreciation for it to keep it open."

"And just how do you expect me to be able to afford that?" asked James, scowling as ever.

"It will pay for itself," Robot beamed. "We just have to spread the word. If enough kids know the arcade is going to be open one more day, you'll be bombarded with kids paying for tokens. Come on James, if the arcade is going down, what have you got to lose?"

James scratched his chin. "You do raise a point. But I can't afford to advertise for something like that, either.

"That's why you've got us!" Robot said, grabbing his startled human companions and embracing them in an uncomfortably tight hug. "We'll advertise the event for you! We can pass out fliers around and after school, just like we did for the house party."

"There's just one problem," Cubey said, holding up his finger. "The kids at school _don't like us."_

"Maybe they wouldn't listen to us two years ago," Mitch said, getting out of Robot's hug and giving him a hearty slap on the back. "But now we've got the class Valedictorian on our side."

Robot beamed. If it weren't for what he'd seen go down in homeroom that day, he'd never think he, the lone robot, would have any kind of sway over the other students. But knowing things had slowly changed in his favor concerning his popularity made his optimism soar. Maybe, just maybe, he could make a change after all.

* * *

Ever since she began living at JNZ, Crystal hadn't had a single moment of ease. Even when nobody spoke to her, she could still feel their eyes on her, watching her as they passed in the halls. Those that weren't looking at her with astonishment at her transparent skin, their ability to look through her, were looking at her for only one other reason: Attraction. Humans liked her curves, and robots liked the shiny, unbreakable material that made them. Humans. Robots. Didn't make any difference. They were all pigs.

Just to feel like she had some semblance of privacy, she took a hooded sweater from the lost and found and took to wearing it around the factory. It was a man's sweater, big enough to fit her like a dress, and probably smelling like workman's armpits. But for her purposes, it was perfect. She couldn't do anything about her transparent legs, or glassy head, but at least she had something protecting her bodies from so many eyes: Judgemental, and perverse.

Despite her unwanted admirers, she didn't get into fights. Nobody, not even the people who hated the Lightoller corporation and resented the idea of this merger, made Crystal feel to blame for it. She was the only Lightoller-made robot in JNZ so far, and it would have been fairly easy for a bunch of robots to gang up on her. Perhaps her demonstration with her strength against the bowling ball back during the assembly deterred them. And without Claymore and Crowe around for a while, nobody was around to demand she take the sweater off.

Somehow, Crystal managed to avoid conflict at the factory entirely, until the day that some of the teenage robots came back for a visit.

Crystal was alone in a corridor after working hours had just ended, letting the sun warm her body through the sweater, and reading a paper back novel the Robot child named Jones had let her borrow. She may not have been a data collector like him, but she loved a good story, and now that she knew him, she felt compelled to try and cram as much information into her brain as her limited memory banks would let her.

"What have we here?"

Crystal looked up from the book, her face twisted with annoyance because the voice had pulled her away from a particularly good part of the book, and saw a five foot tall, gold-colored automaton with copper colored wires on his head that vaguely resembled hair. He was soon followed by a shorter, squatter robot. "It looks like JNZ's infested with bookworms, as well as Lie-teller scum,"

Crystal sat up from her stool, closing her book and held it protectively under her arm. "I know you two," she said, eyes narrow. "You were the ones who threw Little Robot onto the stage at the assembly."

"You may or may not be right," said the taller one, who rolled his eyes back, then thrust out his hand. "They call me Davvy. And my less handsome unit here is referred to as Phillips."

"Watch your tongue, mate," Phillips said to Davvy, then turned to Crystal. "Tell me: Are you really just called 'Crystal'?" asked Phillips. "Dumb name, if you ask me."

"Now Phillips," Davvy started, "Don't be so rude. This shebot is a guest in our humble little factory now, but soon," he said, in a mocking voice as he repeated part of Claymore's speech, "She will feel at home here."

The white pupils of Crytal's eyes were growing wider, her eyebrows narrowing further as her defense mode kicked in. "What. Do. You. Two Want?" she said, emphasizing ever word.

"Just what we said," Davvy answered with a confident smile. "We heard talk that the other units we not doing their part to make you feel welcome here. That they weren't trying to get to know you." He took a step closer. "After all, none of this is really your fault is it? The merger and all. You're just the physical representation of it.

Davvy took another step forward, Phillips rolling the same distance. Crystal felt the urge to back up a step at this point, but she was up against a wall in the narrow hallways of the office wing. There was only one staircase, and it was blocked by Davvy and Phillips. She was trapped.

"Jokes aside, we really don't think that badly of the merger. Who knows," Davvy said, lowering his voice as he came within a breath's distance of Crystal-if he could breathe, that was. "Maybe there will even be something positive in the..." he trailed off, his eyes moving slowly from her gaze, to her cheeks, to her neck, and then finally, on the sweater that covered her body, "... integration." He brought his eyes back up, an unspoken question on his face. "Don't you agree?"

Crystal's disks were spinning, and her body was humming with electrical tension buildup. "Stand back," she said, her voice hardly above a whisper.

Instead, Davvy only moved in closer. At this distance, the extra height he had on her was unnerving. Her personal perimeter defender was screaming alarms in her head. "What did you say?" he said to her, mocking the softness of her voice. "Little robot girl?"

"I said," Crystal practically shouted. "Stand. Back."

This surprised Davvy enough that he did stand one step back. "Oooo! She has a glass tongue after all!" he said, looking and Phillips.

"Think it's as sturdy as the rest of her?" asked Phillips.

"I dunno," Davvy said, then turned back to her. Beneath the long arms of her sweater, Crystal's hands were balling into fists. "Let's experiment. Your tongue it against mine and we'll see who's is stronger."

Before Davvy could pucker his lips and bend down forward to test the hypothesis, Crystal's arm flew out before her, her fist colliding with the underside of Davvy's angular chin, and sending him soaring up straight to the ceiling. His head smashed through the wooden boards of the ceiling in a perfect hole that left him stuck at the neck, his legs flailing.

Down below, Phillips was gaping up, not believing what he was seeing. It happened so fast, he thought his eyes were lagging. One minute, Davvy was leaning over Crystal, the next... that. He caught Crystal staring at him from her captive corner now with the same fierceness on her face the moment she'd turned on Davvy. "Threaten my perimeter," she told him with a pointed finger, "And I'll send you _farther."_ With that, she pulled her sweater arm back down, pulled her novel in front of her body with her other arm, and walked right past the spot that Davvy had been standing a minute ago.

The next few minutes were spent with the short Phillips unit attempting to get Davvy down via extending his arms to Davvy's angles. He pulled and pulled, but Davvy's neck was stuck at an odd angle, and only after ten minutes of trying did he managed to get Davvy down by sheer strength, breaking the other robot's neck-joint, and having the limp body itself come crashing down on Phillips'. Davvy's head, now freed, fell through the hole in the ceiling and hit Phillip's head, causing both of them to groan. Davvy's body blindly went reaching for his head, and with Phillips handing it to him, reattached the neck joint. "Lightoller wench," Davvy muttered when he was fixed.

"Ah, it was too good to be true, Davvy boy," Phillips said. "Guess we won't be extending her an invitation to the group, then, will we?"

"No, Phillips," Davvy said, frustratedly, "I was hoping we could get one of Crowe's unit on our side for this, but I suppose once you're the bird woman's undertoe, you can never be trusted to work in favor of the robots." He shook his head, which confirmed that his head was attached properly. "Come on."

And as if nothing of significance had happened, despite the broken ceiling tiles, the robots casually left.

* * *

 _Originally Published September 1st, 2018_

 _Author's Note from the Story:_

 **In this chapter, Robot and friends arrive at the arcade to forget their troubles, only to find a notice of closure taped to the door. Meanwhile, Crystal is attempting to make the best out of her situation at JNZ, and finds herself confronted by Robot's tormenters, Davvy and Phillips.**

 _Whatever Happened to Robot Jones?_ © Greg Miller & Cartoon Network


	18. Trusting the Foe

" _GOOOOOOOOOOOD MORNING, Polyneux Middle School!_ " suddenly rang out a high pitch, shrill voice from the PA, at the start of first period the next day. " _The date is Wednesday, October the 27th! The sun is shining brightly through the clouds, making the temperature a lovely 60 degrees, so get out there after school and enjoy the last of Indian Summer before the frost sets in! The morning announcements are as follows: Lunch today will be Mac and Cheese with an assortment of various Italian noodles in place of elbows in place of the regular Macaroni, and what some sources claim mustard in place of yellow food coloring for the cheese-but nobody eats that slop anyway, so who cares? Everybody knows this place should get a salad bar. In student council news, Pam Simon and Jamie Martin are neck in neck for title of the treasurer in pre-voting polls, with Jamie Martin having recently come far from his humble beginnings as the smallest, most easily picked on kid in sixth grade-"_

"WHAT _?_ " shouted Jamie, looking around at his group of friends, all looking very annoyed.

" _-and Pam Simon having used her 'powerful arms' to persuade the girls, as always._ "

A group of girls in the back of the room laughed. The Herculean girl's face turned as red as her hair, and Robot genuinely worried she would catch on fire, as a robot would under such anger. "The nerve..." Robot heard her mutter.

" _In staff news, Polyneux's very own Mr. Stuart McMcMc has just been nominated teacher of the year by the Parent Teacher Association."_

McMcMc, who'd been trying and failing to help Mrs. Raincoat set up a projector _,_ turned and looked at the PA as if he could see its speaker and try to gauge if they were serious or not. A wide grin suddenly cut across his face.

"ME?" he asked, as Raincoat smiled awkwardly and clapped for him. The students were thereby obligated to follow suit. One by one, the first period class raised their hands and clapped for McMcMc.

Even Mitch, Cubey, and Robot followed suit, clapping reluctantly for the teacher, but the three of them gave each other the most confused looks at the news out of everybody. Clearly, none of them had even heard of McMcMc being nominated for any honor such as that, let alone the thought of whether or not he deserved such an honor was questionable. Sure, McMcMc taught multiple subjects and had coached the debate team, but plenty of the teachers at Polyneux wore different hats. And few of them were as greedy for accolades as he was.

" _Lastly, on the night of the 31st, there will be an all-access Halloween Party at the house of Heather and Glenn Doppler, in celebration of their daughter's fantastic grades and nomination for class Valedictorian, located on 53rd and Brawnwin... wait-I'm not done yet! Madman, come on!-"_

 _"Clara!"_

the students heard Madman yell at her _,_ following a door, presumably to his office, being opened.

There were then shuffling noises preceeded by what Robot had to assume was Clara wrestling the PA microphone back for a few seconds. " _There will be chips and soda and cake!Admissiontothepartyrequiresthepassword'RogerPrattmanisaLoser'!Lookforthehousewiththeballoons-!_ "

" _Ahem!_ " Madman said, clearing his throat over the PA as Clara's voice disappeared completely. " _Now that the 'morning announcements' are complete, please rise for the Pledge of Allegiance._ "

Robot, Mitch and Cubey rose to their feet and put a hand over their chest, along with the rest of the kids in the class as they began dully reciting the Pledge with Madman. "I pledge allegiance," the kids chorused, sounding very bored, some rolling their eyes "to the flag..."

"Won't Clara get in trouble for that?" asked Robot his friends. Nobody was allowed to dish out the morning announcements but Madman, not even Georgie, the class President. Technically speaking, although she did use the time on the microphone , she did also announce some things truthfully, such as lunch for that day, which Robot happened to know was Mustard Mac-n-Sleeze, and Pam and Jamie being tied in the polls.

"Her?" asked Mitch. "Probably not. She's popular, remember?"

"She never gets in trouble for _anything_ ," Cubey joined in. "One time she set one of the science labs on fire and her parents just paid Madman to keep his mouth shut."

"How'd she managed to set it on fire?" Robot asked, recalling that she'd gotten an 'A' in science to go with her perfect grades, and by that logic, should have known how to use such things as a Bunsen burner correctly.

Mitch and Cubey just shrugged, neither of them able to offer an explanation.

"Guess we can assume Socks is going to Clara's party," said Cubey.

"Definitely," Mitch said. "The question is, are _we_ gonna?"

"Are we even invited?" asked Cubey.

"She did say it was all-access," Robot said. "With that, erm, password."

But even as he said that, Robot realized that there was no way that the entire student body was invited to the party. He could write off the entirety of the current sixth grade class automatically, seeing as underclassmen were seen as automatically inferior by the popular crowd. And there were certain people, like Shannon, who certainly were not invited. Not after what happened on Sunday. But making these obvious exclusions silent made Clara's party seem more appealing.

Maybe she didn't know how to work a Bunsen burner, but she wasn't dumb, that Clara.

"I'm starting to really get sick of this girl," Mitch admitted. "I almost wanna break into Roger's Halloween Party that night just to make her mad."

"Ooooo, _she'd be furious!_ " Cubey said excitedly.

"But seeing as Roger is a Freshman now, wouldn't that party be full of high schooler's?" asked Robot.

Both Mitch and Cubey sighed. "Yeah," Mitch said.

The Pledge of Allegiance wrapped up, the PA 'click'-ing off as Madman turned his mic off, and the children were permitted to sit again.

As the boys shuffled into their seats, Mr. McMcMc pulled his tie tight against his neck, as if preparing for a picture that nobody was eager to take. "W-Well," he said, "I guess great minds eventually _do_ get recognized. If you will excuse me..."

The students watched him leave the English classroom with a bounce in his step, including Mrs. Raincoat. Even though she didn't make a noise, any student that looked at her carefully enough could see that she was trying very hard not to snicker. Rather than be disgruntled at not getting the award herself, it was as if she was just surprised to find out who did. "What a pleasant surprise," she commented, looking bemused. She quickly pulled herself together, and directed her attention at the class. "Ahem. Today class, we'll be wrapping up our 19th century poetry unit with the film of Edward Leer's _The Owl and the Pussycat."_

A boy in the back who had been sipping his water bottle did a spit-take, as several students around him snickered and pointed at him as he blushed. Raincoat gave him a disapproving look, but carried on. "The poem, if you remember from our lecture in 7th Grade English Lit, is about two anthropomorphic animals who travel to a distant land to get married."

Mitch did an exaggerated yawn, while Cubey said, "That dumb story? Oh, this'll be good."

With McMcMc having left Raincoat to figure out the projector herself, she picked at the machine for a short moment before easily setting up the film and having the reel slide into place. She turned off the lights and let the film run. For the first ten minutes or so, Robot let himself get warm and comfortable, letting the nonsense play out in front of him. He didn't have to pay attention very hard, because the story was simple, easy enough for a child to understand. The cartoon opened up with the titicular pair already adrift on their pea green boat, on choppy waters. The Owl did exactly what Robot remembered he did in the poem from having first read it, serenading his feline lover, insisting on how pretty she was, while the cat in turn called the bird 'elegant.'

For whatever reason, even though he'd never thought twice about the story since he'd read it-chalking the poem up to a yet another random series of verses with no purpose-something about the whole thing bothered him today. Maybe it was because he was having to hear the poem sung to him by amateurs with terrible old microphones. Maybe it was because he was having to watch it as an indie made, '50s cartoon. But Robot was annoyed at the implication at the forefront of it all that two so very different creatures could escape to their happily ever after on a boat and not have to face any kind of turbulence, whether literally on the water itself, or in society. The story came off with no self-awareness to Robot, who took it as an insult to the real world, where two different species could never make it work. His systems burned hot, thinking about his doomed pursuit of Shannon.

A whisper from Cubey to Mitch finally yanked Robot's attention away from the movie. "Hey, I just got an idea."

"Oh great, here we go again..." Mitch said.

"No, shut up! Listen:" Cubey told him. "We have to go to Clara's party to support Socks, right? But what if some dumb highschoolers crash the place and ruin it?"

"How do you know that's gonna happen?"

Cubey gave his best attempt at a wicked smile. "Because _we_ let them _in_."

* * *

Marvin Claymore had the mother of all headaches.

That afternoon, he was stuck in another heated meeting with plant manager Hans Pike, leading technicians Kevin and Jerry (Claymore couldn't be bothered to remember their last names), and various other representatives from JNZ Robotics that handled mostly international affairs (fulfilling client orders, designing and shipping robots such as Phillips overseas.) And the only investor present, Mr. McLaughlin, the only one who openly professed his hated of not only Lightoller Cybornetics, but Crowe herself. As well as the major humans running JNZ, certain robots were also present, such as Nutz, who was directly next in line to Pike and took the role of the plants unofficial assistant manager. Even though times that required him to take up the role of acting manager were rare, such as times Pike went on his vacations, the idea of one of the plants own robots taking the role as acting manager made JNZ the most progressive robotics plant in the world-theoretically, anyway. There was still civil liberty issues concerning the voice and welfare of its own that it claimed to care about, not to mention its pollution problem. Lightoller Cybornetics, or more specifically Donna Crowe in the past had openly criticized JNZ for not conserving materials and filtering its airborne emissions, on both the factory and its machines. JNZ might have been able to get away pretending it were a green plant if not for the smoke towers which were a constant reminder that the plant was making no effort to reduce its strain on the planet.

But reducing pollution was a concern pushed to the back of Marvin's head right now. For the past week, he'd been practically tied down to his chair at the head of the long table in the clean meeting room, with dozens of robots and humans alike bombarding him with fast-spoken, scientifically wordy concerns that Claymore could just barely understand half of (he was just a CEO, not a scientist). The message was clear though: Nobody was happy about the merger with Lightoller Cybornetics. And those who weren't worried were angry.

Especially the robots. It was as of late Claymore was genuinely regretting buying JNZ Robotics from the bank after its two surviving founders, Nathans and Zamboni, were killed in a car accident about a decade ago. He was a filthy rich businessman, free to pursue whatever industry he wanted to. And for some reason the then cheap buying price for JNZ, and the rising integration of technology into society called out to him. And ten years later, here he was. Why couldn't he have invested in an industry where the product didn't talk back to him? He could have ran a car company. Chryslers don't talk back.

But no. Here he was. In one of the most sticky and uncomfortable situations a CEO could ever find themselves in. Where the staff and the robots-the very product of the company-were questioning his choices. Where money wasn't the bottom line, but the welfare of the lives of the robots.

As an intern of Jerry and Kevin was reading off another stammer-filled list of predicted stats for the company that, in short, meant the company's profits were going to tank at least for those first few months as they paid to do all the cosmetic changes that would represent JNZ and Lightoller being one entity, Claymore's throbbing eyes drifted to a picture of Dr. Jones up on the wall, beneath the clock. This one was different from the one in the hallway leaving the main work floor, with just Dr. Jones in it, looking slightly younger. Yet he still had this uncomfortable expression, as if yet again, he was cornered unwillingly by the cameraman. Or camerawoman. Camerabot, even. Whoever.

Claymore had never met Jones himself, though he recalled seeing the poor scientist cornered by reporters on television once, long before the opportunity to purchase JNZ would ever arise. Even then, he looked like such a scared little boy in a grown man's body. But looks were deceiving, and Jones was no better example of that. He was the man who crafted the most brilliant robots the world had ever seen, become a millionaire, living in the woods as to not be hounded by the press, and then become the center of one of the most famous missing person's cases in the United States: One that still baffled the FBI ten years later. How could he accomplish so much if he didn't know exactly what he was doing? No... Dr. Jones was a smart man, that much Claymore was certain of. And though he still understood little about the robots that he produced, he was a smart man himself. Claymore knew there was something queer about Jones' disappearance. Though he'd never openly said anything about it, Claymore was certain, after years of being JNZ's CEO, that Dr. Jones disappeared of his own volition. Wherever he went, if even he was still alive, he had escaped the pressures of being the head in one of the most controversial industries on the planet: The industry of artificial life.

Claymore looked upon Jones' photo, dubious of Jones' innocent expression now more than ever. _Where did you go, you little weasel?_

"So as you c-can see," the stammering intern said, shuffling his papers back into a pile, "Lightoller would have a much less expensive conversion with the merge than JNZ. Reconstruction to accommodate the cybornetic half would take at least a year to build and put several on site client's projects on halt while we made extensions to the building."

"Why isn't Crowe paying for this?" asked the heavier and less excitable scientist of the pair, Jerry, who ripped off his protective goggles to rub the bridge of his nose.

"Because we agreed to keep both plants open," said Nutz. "Crowe figures the cosmetic changes to the factories are on the respected owners of those halves. She sent me schematics of Lightoller's plant and believe it or not, there is significant room for a JNZ laboratory. Contractors are due for their first visit there tomorrow."

"What's she doing with all that extra space to begin with?" asked a skeptical Kevin.

"It's not ours to question," said manager Pike. "Crowe's work on her factory before the merger is her right to privacy. It's only what she does now that we need to be informed about."

"I don't like the sound of any of this," said McLaughlin, folding his arms across his starched white shirt. "Crowe's never been the least bit trustworthy. Who knows how long she's been putting this plan together to merge the companies. And getting away from these complicated numbers, what exactly _is_ the boon for JNZ for doing this?"

Claymore's eyes shifted to the the poor intern, who yet again dribbled out some lame pro-environmental, pro-teamwork propaganda for the higher ups of JNZ to accept as an actual reason for the merger to be a good thing. Claymore was grateful he didn't have to say anything at these meetings-he was tired of dishing out the same empty speeches over and over. But he was especially glad that he didn't have to to say anything related to McLaughlin's specific question. Because in truth, there _was_ a specific reason the merger was necessary. But it would be impossible to explain to these gentleman without revealing too much.

He pulled the gray sleeve back on bony arm and checked the time. Every five minutes seemed like an hour these days, especially trapped in these meetings. Isaac would be driven home from school soon by their personal attendant, but Marvin wouldn't be home until very late. Sometimes he envied fathers who worked a regular 9-5. They got home in time to play a game of catch in the backyard with their sons. Marvin did not. How much time did he waste?

The intern was almost done speaking when there was a knock on the black painted door. Without seeing her face in the sliver of glass in the window, Marvin Claymore knew who it was.

Not waiting for anyone to open the door for her-or for that matter, give her permission to enter the meeting room-Donna Crowe stepped inside, smiling at all the faces that looked up at her in slack-jawed shock. "Hello, gentlemen. I realize I am late. You'll have to forgive me, but the traffic was quite horrendous."

Nobody said anything to this, and Crowe paid no mind as she started for the table. She was dressed business casual today, swapping the sparkling deep blue dress she'd worn at the Gala for a pants suit, tie included. Even in business attire, she stood out to the men like a store thumb, with her feathery black hair and the deep navy of her suit, separating her from the JNZ staff and associates. As there were no empty chairs at the table, McLaughlin, sitting adjacent to Claymore on the long side of the table, stood, pulling out his chair and gesturing for her to take it. Crowe gave him a greasy smile as she slipped gracefully into the chair, and McLaughlin left the room. A few at the table cocked their heads after a while, probably wondering when he'd come back with a spare chair for himself. But Claymore had known McLaughlin as a stone cold honest man. He couldn't hide his disgust for Crowe if he tried. He wasn't coming back. Not as long as Crowe was in the room.

Following him, Nutz, Kevin and Jerry also stood and left the room, muttering something about Nutz requiring a system's check. And then started a trickle effect where the remaining men and bots also stood and left the room, one by one, trying less and less to look non-chalaunt about it. Marvin looked as if he couldn't care less, and Crowe simply let her eyes follow each one as they left, keeping an entertained expression on her face. The last man, the anxious young intern, couldn't stand the silence and the attention on him to follow suit, finally launched from his seat between Crowe and Marvin and ran for the door, slamming it behind him.

Then it was just the CEOs of JNZ and Lightoller. Claymore and Crowe.

Only when Crowe finally let her gaze fall to the man sat across from her did she open her mouth again. "So, does it normally take 10 men to perform one unit's system's check?"

Claymore rolled his eyes and sighed. He was grateful her appearance had ended the meeting early, and was considering calling a service robot out in the hall to bring him a couple aspirin. But he had to be firm with her. "You can't just walk in on our meetings like that," he said, speaking like a disappointed parent to a child. "It's part of our contract."

"Oh my," Crowe said, "If I'd known it was a private meeting, I would have stayed out. You should notify me of when you're going to be hosting private meetings with your staff, of course." Her dark green eyes twinkled with that last remark.

"And _you_ should notify me as to when you're planning on dropping in," Marvin said, eyes heavy, and looking unimpressed. Crowe didn't intimidate him. They had decided to not completely merge their factories into one. That meant that this floor was still his property, and hell would freeze over before he let her intimidate him on his property.

He had tangled with the snake knowing exactly what she was. And the men were perfectly right for being worried about this choice he'd made, for the investors, the workers, and the robots who were all at risk. They didn't know the real reason he had done it. They couldn't know.

"What brings you here? You didn't just drive an hour over just to break up my meeting."

"Oh, Marvin," Crowe said, propping her head up with her arm and looking at him almost adoringly. But it was the kind of adoring that a person would have looking at a duckling or some other small animal. "There is still so much to discuss. I guess the first thing we should talk about today is if you've considered which, if any, of your units will be moving to my factory to help with the creation of the JNZ Laboratory."

Claymore cocked an eyebrow. "What are you talking about? I thought you told Pike and Nutz that the renovations were the responsibility of each other's resources."

"In terms of cost, yes," Crowe said, carefully. "However, since we will be merged, and otherwise would share a building, I think it would be beneficial to each other if I were to lend you a few of my units, and you were to lend me a few of your units, to help guide the construction process, rather than just one supervisor."

Immediately, Claymore was suspicious. "Why? Certainly that would benefit _you,_ seeing as several of my robots were designed for helping with full building construction. But the only kind of robots you put out are household service droids."

Crowe let out an airy laugh. "Who do you think built my factory, Claymore? Of course I have construction robots, but they are stationary to the factory." She grinned. "I could show you, if you'd ever care for a tour."

"Thanks, but maybe at a later date," Claymore said. There was no way in Sam's Hill he was going over to the Lightoller factory. He would send Nutz and Pike if he had to, but he'd sooner walk into busy traffic than _that_ lion's den. He didn't know what kind of robots Crowe was keeping from the public, and after having managed a robotics plant for a decade, and seeing what it could produce but did not expose to the public, he wouldn't risk entering a plant that he didn't own.

Robotics was a dangerous business. He only wished he'd realized this when he bought JNZ.

And he wasn't too keen on having Lightoller units in his own factory, either. That Crystal unit seemed dumb enough-certainly, Lightoller units couldn't match the metal sophistication of JNZ's robots. And it never spoke to anyone unless spoken too, first, which was a common trait among simpler-minded robots. But whenever he passed it in the halls, he couldn't shake the feeling like it was smarter than the usual Lightoller robot. But he couldn't get rid of it without raising suspicion. He couldn't let anyone know that he didn't trust Crowe as far as he could throw her. And in his current state, he doubted he could lift her arm if he wanted to.

Claymore shrugged his shoulders. "You've spent enough time here in the past few weeks. Were there any units in particular that you were thinking about?"

Crowe started counting off on her fingers. "Well, I was thinking about-"

Suddenly, there was another knock on the door. Claymore's eyes shifted from Crowe's the door, and Crowe spun in her seat entirely. Now it was her turn to look slack-jawed. She had been sure McLaughlin wasn't coming back, as Claymore had been.

But this time, the person who knocked didn't let themselves in. She turned and gave him a quizzical look. Marvin made a motion to stand, but Crowe stopped him. "No, allow me," she said. And Claymore, not feeling like getting up, did.

But when Crowe opened it, she was surprised to see nobody standing there. She looked left and right of the hallway before her eyes shifted downwards, to see a practically horrified, enormous eyed three foot tall robot staring up at her. "Oh..." was all it could say.

"What do you want?" asked Crowe, in a flat tone.

"Is... my father in there?" Robot asked. He didn't think he'd ever be intimidated by Crowe. But he was not expecting to see her here, and was caught off guard.

"This is a private CEO's meeting," Crowe said, as if Robot's question was an irritating waste of her time. "Your father is probably down on the work floor with all the other robots."

All at once, the intimation he had died away. "My father does not work on the floor anymore," he told her factually, and getting angry. "He became a supervisor years ago, he works up in the offices now."

The woman rolled her heavily shadowed eyes. "Oh, pardon me for the mix up."

Claymore, seeing the little robot standing there, stood up and rounded the table. "Robot, your father didn't sit in on this meeting today. Try the meeting room down below, I believe the robot supervisors are meeting there today."

" _Thank you_ ," Robot said to Claymore. He reached for the door and gave Crowe a slightly insulted look before slamming the door in her face.

"Oh!" Crowe said, the door almost catching her nose. Her hands flew to her face, metal one included, and rubbed, giving herself a moment to accept that she was unharmed. "The nerve of that one," she said, sounding somewhat impressed. "I have a half of a mind to order his dismantlement." She turned to Claymore. "Does he do that to every human?"

"Only the ones who are rude to him," Claymore said in a sing-song voice, unable to hold back a smirk.

She rejoined Claymore at the table, but her mind was now stuck on Robot. "Odd thing for a teen apprentice to have his father become a supervisor. Don't tell me he's training to become a supervisor, too."

"No fear of that," Claymore started. "That one's situation is different in that he was never his father's apprentice."

"Interesting," Crowe said, looking genuinely intrigued. "Than what does he do?"

"Ah, I don't remember exactly, it was explained to me a while back," Claymore said, rubbing the back of his neck. He was really aching for an aspirin. "But basically he's a prototype that we placed in the school system that's supposed to learn and interact with the kids."

"Ah, so that's the one," Crowe said under her breath. She vaguely remembered hearing about a robot from JNZ that was going to be enrolled in school, but that was many years ago. She'd nearly forgot about it. "Well, he's adopted teenage attitude successfully," she thought, nodding. "And uh, what's the outcome of the mission?"

"I don't really know," Claymore said.

Crowe narrowed her eyes. "What do you mean, 'I don't know,'? I mean, what's the point? What is the hypothesis? What is he proving?"

"I mean, 'I don't know' as in I was never explained what the point of the mission was."

"You don't know?" she asked, venom in her voice, "Or you don't wish to tell me?"

"It was an order Harris put in before he ran off-er, 'disappeared'," Claymore said, using air quotes. "I had nothing to do with him. I've left his care and programming with Jerry and Kevin and his parents, but they're as clueless as I am. Go on and ask them."

Crowe's cherry red lips were shifting back and forth as Claymore spoke. "So, let me get this straight: You want me to believe that one of your most intellectually sophisticated robots is wasting its time by carrying out the wishes of a dead man?"

"He's not legally dead," Claymore said. And God help him, if he ever found Dr. Jones, the hell that he would put him through...

Claymore and Crowe spoke for only fifteen minutes more. In that time, Crowe heavily implied on several occasions that Claymore was an idiot for claiming to be totally hands-off when it came to the details of robots and their tasks, and Claymore heavily implied that Crowe was an untrained, female canine. Nothing more needed.

The meeting did end with the two deciding which of the units they would assign to help build the other company's labs at each other's factories. Claymore at one point suggested Robot's father as one of the robot that would be helpful as someone who could act as a supervisor in the construction, as well as a hand in helping in the physical construction itself, but Crowe shot this idea down. She wasn't sure if Claymore wasn't telling her as much about Electro Jones's son as he actually knew about him, and until she found out more, she didn't feel comfortable with anyone from that branch of robots stepping foot in her factory.

Even after she left the meeting, she couldn't get little Robot Jones out of her head. Being the one to take Crystal on that first dance in celebration of the merger, and slamming the door in her face a little while ago both showed a boldness she didn't expect out of a robot.

And not knowing what precisely he was built for made her very uneasy.

After she left the meeting room, her pumps clacked and carried her across the 2nd floor, to the other offices, where she made running into Robot Jones again look completely like an accident.

"Dad?" Robot called, poking his head left and right into the open doors, "Mom wants you home right after work to cut the lawn, remember? She says she's gonna be really upset if you stay late again and avoid it! Daaad!" He pulled his head out of the door and beheld Donna Crowe, looking down at him.

"Oh, sorry, Robot, I didn't mean to bump into you again," she lied. "But since I have, I guess I should apologize for the rude tone I had addressed you with earlier."

 _Don't patronize them,_ he remembered his mother saying. But she had said this when she had reason to believe they could still stop the merger from happening. The time for that was over, and Crowe had power in this company. Maybe it would behoove him not to reject her apology straight up. "Apology... accepted?"

She cocked her head slightly to the side. "You're very advanced for a regular old robot. I admit I didn't think JNZ was capable of such intelligent machines for all these years, but it appears that I was wrong."

Robot just gazed up at her and blinked. It wasn't the first time he'd received a complement that was also a backhanded insult towards all robots. And he wasn't looking for approval from someone with a reputation among robots as bad as Crowe. "I am pleased that you have noticed that robots are not all simpletons," Robot said, a sour, rusty metal taste in his mouth. "Goes to show that not all humans are narrow minded snobs."

Normally, at this point the human Robot was speaking to honestly about their rudeness to him would blow up. But the automaton's smart mouth only seemed to delight Crowe. "You have gained quite a strong perception of humans from your time in school. How long has it been now? Two, three years?"

Robot's expression only got more suspicious, and he slowly turned his body, minus head, away from her. "I don't feel comfortable talking about about this with you."

But as soon as Robot took a step away, Crowe hurried in front of him, blocking his path. "How well do you think 6 years of middle school will do for your integration with humans, at the rate you're going, hm?"

"I don't know, and I won't know," Robot said, folding his arms. "Because I will be leaving in May."

"Leaving?" Crowe said, cocking her head curiously. "Why would you be doing that?"

Robot paused, blinking. Was this a test? Was she trying to throw him off of what she was trying to get at? Was she just trying to make him look dumb? "Because I'm graduating," he said lamely, reaching into his chassis and pulling out his order form for a cap and gown, of which he still needed to get signed by his parents. "All the 8th graders received one."

She eyed the packet curiously before, suddenly, an idea formed in the back of Crowe's head, and she carefully let her smile drop. "Oh dear... you don't understand, do you?"

"Understand what?"

"You're a smart robot, Jones. Really think about it: What would you need to go through the process of graduation for?" she asked, looking him in the eyes now. "If you're designed purpose is to attend middle school, what makes you think it's going to change, just because friends you've made when you started are moving on?"

Robot opened his mouth for a retort, only to come up speechless. It was like taking a baseball bat to his gut. "But of course, I..." he tried to start. His attendance was perfect. His grades, save for a few misses here and there in history, were stellar. And he had just been nominated for a chance at representing their entire graduating class.

And here was a very, very good point as to why none of that could justify him graduating. Robot remembered his unease about writing a speech that would make his middle school endeavors seem meaningful, and it suddenly occurred to him why that might be: Maybe there was never meant to be a proper end to his schooling. Maybe it was supposed to carry on for longer than three years...

"I'm sorry to be the one to inform you of this," Crowe said, bending down to look at him at eye-level, the way a preschool teacher would do to one of their students. "But you're not going anywhere, Robot. Your mission stays with middle school."

All fight drained, Robot looked up at Crowe in terror. But not at the woman herself, but the idea she proposed to him. Flashbacks were flooding in: Pam calling him an 'it' and making a big deal out of him being able to speak in front of everyone his second day at school. The Yogmans, and then the girls, years later, using him for his X-Ray vision. Hoisting Cubey on his back and using his jets to propel them towards the finish line during the Math Challenge, just two semesters ago. Were these kids just the first of many to interact with a robot that was meant to be a permanent staple to the school? To interact with generations of children being pushed up through the school system?

No. "But that does not make sense," Robot said slowly. "I was never told it would..."

"Now, come on dear, it must make sense," she said, reaching out and touching Robot's shoulder. "Even I can understand why they delayed telling you: They were saving the information until it was necessary. That way the first three year's data comes out unaffected."

Robot looked at Crowe's right hand-the hand that was made of metal, he only knew, because she had chose to reveal it to everyone at the Gala. As it was artificial, the grip was different. It didn't feel like a human hand. The grip was very much like that of a robot-steady, constant pressure. Cold.

There was something very honest about that touch, and it made the things she was saying seem more real. Despite every part of his brain firing off warnings about the distrust he had for Crowe, he was naturally sedated by that touch.

The touch of a robot.

"No... you are mistaken..." Robot started, backing away slowly. "Y-you don't know anything about any of this. You don't know anything about _me_!"

And without another word, Robot sprinted down the hallway, looking for his father, leaving Crowe with a satisfied smile.

There was one last person she had to see before she left JNZ. As Robot sprinted for the end of the hallway, Crowe went the opposite direction, letting her heels clip in a calming rhythm as she went.

It didn't take very long to find her. Outside the factory, where she retreated the night before the Gala, sat the Crystal Unit, her head shimmering with a yellow glow on this beautiful sunny day.

She was propped up on a rock next to the thicket of trees. It was getting late, and the blue in the sky was already fading in the start of the sunset. The shadow that had cast down from the trees and had done its job of hiding her had retreated as the sun changed direction, leaving her exposed.

The shebot was so absorbed in her paperback novel that she didn't notice her mistress nearing until they were a foot apart. Crystal looked up from her book, and dropped it in shock, hitting the ground with a small dust cloud. Her eyes flickered down to the big, black sweater she was still wearing, wondering if she'd be punished for covering up her incredible transparent body. "Ms. Donna. I... I had not been informed you were visiting today."

"Crystal, I have a new job for you," Crowe said, cutting to the chase. "You seemed to have already made an acquaintanceship with the small Robot Jones. The overseers tell me he has taken it upon himself to gift you with books and conversation."

Crystal's pupils shrank. Robot had just given her that new book as he came in that afternoon. Every time they spoke, they had taken great care to be discreet about it. Had the overseers been watching? "Affirmative," Crystal said, carefully.

"So it is only fair to assume that he is approaching the point in a relationship when one begins to reveal much more intimate details about themselves."

"Affirmative," Crystal said again.

"There's something specifically I need to know-and as the new co-CEO of this corporation, I have a right to know, but that I need your help with," Crowe told Crystal. "I want you to find out what Robot Jones' mission is actually about."

Crystal blinked, looking confused. "Studying Junior High age children, no?"

"Yes, but _why?_ " Crowe emphasized, eyes narrowing. "Supposedly, we have access to all the data, but not the purpose, and it doesn't make sense. Marvin Claymore is either lying,or he's completely useless on the matter. And I don't think anybody else in the factory knows anything about what Harris Jones had intended for the little Robot to ultimately accomplish, either. Which means that the only one with that information must be the Little Robot himself, and I want you to get it out of him."

In matters like this, it was useless to ask her mistress what she had planned. The transparent shebot couldn't begin to imagine what Crowe would need with that specific bit of information, seeing as the entire factory would be partly her domain, once the merger was totally complete. But an order was an order. She could only nod.

Crowe smiled, bending down, dusting off Crystal's book, and handing it back to her. The cover of the old novel had a renaissance painting of a muscular man with a sword, the lower half of his body covered by a loose draping cloth. "This may require you to get very close to him," Crowe told her carefully, as if to emphasize what she was saying. "Do you understand?"

Crystal's pupils wobbled under her mistress's gaze. "Affirmative, Miss."

"Good," the woman cooed, placing her right hand on the back of Crystal's. "I know I can trust you more than any other unit in my force."

Having shaken up her unit, Crowe heading for the doors back into the factory.

Crystal sat on the rock, still clutching her book, frozen in contemplation for the longest time.

 _Intimate. Relationship._ If she could blush, those words Crowe was using would have done it. Those we words she had never associated with the little Jones unit before, but spoken like that, it made Crystal realize that she had indeed told Jones much about herself, and he to her.

And it only then occurred to her just how much danger he'd put Jones in by doing so.

* * *

 _Originally Published September 7th, 2018_

 _Author's Note for the Story:_

 **In this chapter, the Mitch and Cubey hatch a plan to ruin Clara's celebration/Halloween Party, while Crowe relays a deeply disturbing idea to Robot Jones that puts everything he knows into jeopardy.**

 _Whatever Happened to Robot Jones?_ © Greg Miller & Cartoon Network


	19. Simon Says

Robot was studying his reflection in a boys bathroom mirror at school. His chassis paint peeling away at the corner, eyelids heavily shadowed, lines under his eyes. The bathroom mirror and surrounding tiles had cracks in them, as if they had aged as poorly. He still needed to extend his leg joints to see into the mirror, which was set up at a height that was in favor boys who had experienced at least one growth spurt. As of now, Robot had never had one.

The door to the empty bathroom swung open, and a human stepped in. Taller than Robot, perfect height for the mirror, this boy had curly blond hair, and wore stained sweatpants. Upon recognizing these familiar details, Robot turned from the mirror in delighted relief. "Socks unit!"

"Who's 'Socks'?" asked the boy, whom Robot now saw was different from the human Robot knew by that name. This boy had a pointed nose, much longer hair, wore thick, blue framed glasses, and his plaid shirt was red instead of green, not to mention his voice was much higher pitched than Socks, even before the change. To top it off, this boy had several facial piercings. "It's Jacob, Robot, remember? Your best friend?" he said, letting the door swing shut behind him. "Oh, don't tell me: You're having another malfunction."

"Jacob?" Robot asked. That name meant nothing to him.

"Hey Ricky, you in there?" asked the boy named Jacob, knocking on Steve's stall near the back wall. "I think Roboy's got another bug, you wanna take a look at 'em?"

"Ro _boy_?" questioned the automaton.

"Sure... gimme a second," said an unenthusiastic voice from behind the stall. After a flush, the door opened, and a shorter boy with black hair exited the stall. But unlike Cubey, this boy wore no glasses, had a longer face with tears in his jeans at the knees, and part of his hair hung over his left eye.

He approached Robot and took him by the shoulders, pressing his fingerless gloves tight against Robot's ball joint. "Stay still while I have a look at your insides," he said, removing one hand and reaching for Robot's chassis.

"Perimeter security threatened-back off!" Robot shouted, immediately feeling violated. "I don't even know who you are! I might let Cubey or Mitch run a diagnostic on my health, but you-"

"Mitch and Cubey?" the boy named Ricky said, in a joyless monotone which definitely did not belong to Cubey. He shook his head, making his long bangs flop back and forth in a hideously feminine style. "No, Robot, we've told you this: Those kids graduated already. They don't go to school here anymore."

"Graduated?" Robot said, fear climbing into his voice. _Why am I not with them?_ "What is today's date?"

Before letting them answer, Robot pushed the boy named Ricky away, and went straight for Steve's stall. He didn't even bother to ask where Steve himself was, his mind only on one thing: The calendar that Steve kept taped to the door.

But when Robot opened it, the calendar, and its lewd female model, were not there, which only made Robot more nervous. He spun around. "Where's the calendar?"

"What calendar?" asked Jacob, looking genuinely confused.

"Dude's trippin' bad," said Ricky, still looking unmoved. "Probably gonna have to run a clean sweep. I'll tell Ned when I see him in Math today."

Ned. Another name that rang new to his digital roster. Was that supposed to be his new Mitch? Robot looked left, right, up and down, as if an explanation would be written on the walls somewhere. But the only thing his eye came across was a piece of paper, balled up by the sink. As the humans watched him in bewilderment, Robot ran to the sink, unfolding the paper and holding it out before him.

It was a failed algebra pop quiz that belonged to some kid named Vinny Kowalczyk. The teacher of said algebra was not McMcMc, but someone named Mr. Manchester. But it was the pre-typed date, in very legible font, that sent shivers up Robot's servos.

 **May 5th, 1997.**

Robot should have graduated Polyneux this time ten years ago.

Suddenly the cracks in the mirror and the lines under his eyes made sense. The school was ten years older. And the anniversary of his activation day was last month.

He was twenty four years old.

And he was still in middle school.

Robot seized up in terror, looking around the room like it was foreign to him. But the boys bathroom on the first floor was very familiar to him-that's what made it scary. This was where, over ten years ago, he had asked Mitch why he shouldn't go into the girl's bathroom, and why girls would make him vomit. That mirror was where he watched Socks pop numerous blemishes, in a mixture of awe and secret thanks that he didn't get them himself. This was also where he and Cubey would sometimes hide out play video games on his portable device when they were taking extended bathroom breaks from detention.

It was all so fresh in his head. How many kids had come between Socks, Mitch and Cubey, and these new kids: Ned, Jacob, and Ricky? In ten years, he would have had to have repeated the same three years of middle school at least three more times. Any new friends he had accumulated during that time would have graduated by now, too. Now it was these three. And eventually, he would have to say goodbye to them, too.

It was like tiny light bulbs were being crushed in his chest. The sadness he felt was too much. He may have been twenty four, but his heart, as his body, was still that of a little boy, and as such, he did what a little boy would do in such despair: He began to cry. Loud, heavy, aching sobs that rattled his old, rusty little body.

After seeing how unconcerned the boy Ricky was to Robot's confusion, he was shocked when the human came up and wrapped his arms around him. Only a few times in his life did Robot remember feeling a human press themselves to himself like that. When he had first started school with the humans, a touch like that would have felt restrictive and strange. But after all his time spent with the humans, he embraced the warmth and pressure. The physical message that someone was there for him. Even if he didn't know this boy from Adam, he truly did appreciate the gesture. But he was too upset to show it at the moment.

"Calm down, Robot," Ricky said. And this time, his deep, flat voice was almost soothing. "Everything's gonna be OK."

"I want to go home. I want my mom and dad," Robot croaked, black stained tears running down his face. "I want my life. I want my friends."

"We _are_ your friends, Robot," Ricky tried to explain. "Jacob, Ned and I have been your friends since we started here in September. A lot of the other kids wouldn't talk to you, but we thought you were cool, don't you remember? Please remember," he said. And Robot could see through his misty eyes that despite his best efforts, Ricky looked deeply uncomfortable, loosening his hug on Robot a little.

What Ricky said only reminded Robot of Socks, Mitch and Cubey even more. Their situation had been exactly the same, and it only made Robot cry harder.

"Oh dang, he's real bad," Ricky whispered to Jacob. "Keep watch by the door: Don't want the other guys to see him like this. They'll never let him live it down."

"Wait, Mr. Mitchell is heading this way!" Jacob said, peering out the bathroom door. "He'll know what to do."

"Mr... Mr. Mitchell?" Robot asked, eyes opening.

After so many foreign names had been thrown in his direction, it was unreal to hear one that was familiar.

Jacob called someone to the boy's bathroom, and sure enough, the face that poked in was that of a very familiar adult. But Robot was surprised at how different he looked now.

After ten years, the Computer Science teacher still had his trademark bushy brown beard, but it had been trimmed and treated with product. His blond hair, turning darker to match his beard, was chopped off above the neck, with only long bangs remaining. And even though he wore a jacket to symbolize his maturity and tenure at the school, something about the way he moved was still so very young and buoyant.

If there was a single teacher from Robot's memory that would have been a welcome sight, it was him, for sure.

Mr. Mitchell looked at Jacob, then at Ricky, and then finally at Robot. His face was the most concerned so far. "Thinking about Socks, Mitch and Cubey again, Robot?" he asked, softly.

"This isn't right," Robot told Mr. Mitchell. He knew the human could do nothing for him, short of turn back time, but it was a child's job to put his problems on the adults and wish with all their might that they could do something. "I was supposed to have graduated with Socks, Mitch and Cubey. I don't belong here."

"I know it's confusing, Robot," Mr. Mitchell said, getting down on his knee and placing a hand on Robot's shoulder.

There were lines under his eyes, too, and a gold ring on his right hand. Robot would be happy for him and the joys that the passage of time had given him, if he weren't so sorry for himself. There were so many questions Robot had for Mr. Mitchell, but none more powerful than the question he had for himself: Why?

"But it's just a memory relapse," Mr. Mitchell went on. "They started happening a few years ago, but it's an easy fix. You'll feel better with a little tune-up, I promise."

But Robot didn't want to just feel better. He couldn't believe he could ever feel happy with this arrangement. It wasn't fair. It just wasn't fair. "How could you let them do this to me?" Robot asked. "Why didn't you help me?"

"I tried talking with the overseers Robot, trying to tell them how much you've changed since you started here that first year, and how much you deserved to move on, but they wouldn't have it. But you will always have friends here, and I'm not going away," he said. "Not for a long time."

Robot's tears were slowing down, but he was far from convinced. It felt like he was in prison with a life sentence and no chance of bail, for a crime he never committed. He didn't care if he could make friends after Socks Mitch and Cubey were gone. He didn't want his life to be this, over and over. It made his accomplishments worthless.

"Feel better now?" asked Mr. Mitchell.

Robot was about to ask another question, but his vision suddenly became blurry. At once he realized: Mr. Mitchell's hand had shifted from his shoulder to a tiny panel on Robot's back-his manual 'off' switch. Mr. Mitchell was shutting him down.

"We're going to help you, Robot," the teacher said, but his voice was quiet, as if he was a half a mile away.

This wasn't the kind of help Robot wanted. He croaked out a protest that was deaf to his own ears, and watched his most trustworthy teacher and nineties friends fade into a mixture of colors that he soon forgot the names of. Darkness closed in all around him, taking away all his fight.

And then Robot bolted upright.

The room was dark. Just four minutes after midnight, read his internal clock.  
 _  
Internal clock!_ Confounded dream. In his search for Steve's stall calendar, Robot had forgotten about his own internal time keeping device, which had its own calendar.

28th, Thursday morning. 1987.  
 _  
8th Grade. Middle school._ Robot slammed his head back down on the arm of the couch, sighing. It was just a bad dream. A terrible, awful dream, but a dream nevertheless.

Damn Crowe. Robot would have never had a dream like that if it weren't for what she'd said at the factory that afternoon. He hated that that woman-that _human-_ had shook him up so badly. That she had that kind of power over him.

And the worst part was that, even after he'd woken up, the nightmare-at least what it was about, wasn't over.

Crowe had pointed out a logical flaw in Robot's occupation as a student at Polyneux that he had never considered before. Why should the overseers let him graduate? Wasn't his purpose to study middle schoolers? What would he do once graduation was over? Would he be sent back to the sixth grade to start all over again? Or worse... what if he was completely reassigned? What if the data he collected wasn't good enough, and they decided to make a new robot to go to school, and send him somewhere else?

"No... no!" Robot smacked his head. "I cannot be thinking about this right now! I've got too much else to worry about." He sighed. "Poor Chris. No wonder she's afraid of Crowe. She turns your worst fears against you."

He pondered that last statement for a moment. Dr. Jones had been alive to see Crowe's company rise to fame and fortune. In fact, Lightoller had been a top competitor with JNZ when Dr. Jones disappeared. If if it wasn't foul play, what if Crowe had said something to Jones to scare him into running away?

The idea made him sit up straight again, flinging the orange fleece blanket he'd been using to the side and hopping to his feet. Despite how much he didn't want to waste his energy on this, it was too intriguing a hypothesis to let die.

His mother was probably going to wake up and ask him what he was doing making a fresh pot of hot oil at this hour, but there was no hope of him going back to sleep at this point. Robot quietly slipped into the kitchen to get his refreshment, and then sat at his desk until morning, searching though the house's major databases for anything and everything he didn't already know about his own creator.

* * *

"You look wiped."

With a slow upwards tilt of his chin, Robot looked bleary-eyed at Socks. Sixteen hours after the automaton had woken up from his nightmare, he was still awake. It was after school now, and the boy were at the pop up costume shop next door to the comic book store in town. "I had a lot of homework to complete," Robot told Socks. And it wasn't technically a lie. Just not homework of the school kind.

"You should take it easy," Socks advised, cracking open a grape soda can. "With your grades, there's no way you'd fail at this point. Skip a few assignments, not like McMcMc can do anything about it."

Robot made a noise that was a cross between a negative beep and a sigh. Of course Socks would assume McMcMc would have his hands tied. McMcMc didn't have a personal grudge against Socks. Robot's homework was the only one McMcMc was scrutinizing, just waiting for him to slip up, do one wrong calculation. The other teacher's homework Robot often considered skipping-he was already turning in the bare minimum as it was, particularly with his book reports. And Raincoat had noticed, based on the kinds of comments she wrote in the margins.

But after two years of perfect math homework completion and delivery, Robot refused to let this slip away from him, just because he had so much more to do. He may have let McMcMc continue believing he had more brainpower than he actually did, but he wasn't about to let the human believe for a second that Robot was losing his own.

"Take a swig, looks like you could use it," said Socks, shoving the can in Robot's hands.

The automaton eyed the can cautiously. Normally he turned down the consumption of human food whenever possible, since in most cases it was pure waste, and his tank didn't deal with it well, resulting in a stomach ache. But today, Robot took a large sip, hoping that by some miracle he'd feel the sensation of caffeine.

Almost immediately, Robot's face turned green, and he shoved the can back into Socks' hand, trying his best to swallow his mouthful. Two things he learned fast: One, the fizz in soda didn't agree with his throat pipes.

And Two: Grape was a nasty flavor.

Socks was walking with Robot down a line of double racks, one lower, one higher, with various Men's costumes. Socks was tall enough by this point to wear adult sized costumes, but he was only browsing. "Clara and I went costume shopping yesterday," Socks explained. "You should see Clara's outfit-so hot."

"Clara paid for your costume?" Robot asked, gauging from the knowledge that Socks had no money-terrible at saving his allowance money-and even last year, his parents refused to fork over money for a Halloween Costume, figuring he was too old for Trick-or-Treating.

"Well, of course, we're boyfriend and girlfriend now," Socks said before taking another swig of soda. As if it were common enough knowledge that both boyfriends _and_ girlfriends treated each other on non-date expenses that even Robot should know this.

As it was, Robot didn't, and decided to add this information into a tentative folder where he kept all data he collect on middle school boyfriends and girlfriends that he learned specifically from Socks and Clara. Tentative, because while he wished happiness for his best friend, he wasn't entirely sure that Socks and Clara made the best example to learn by.

Then again, Robot thought, when his own time came, how good a boyfriend would _he_ make?

Socks and Robot came to the end of the row, near the back of the store, where Mitch and Cubey were trying on various accessories.

They arrived in time to see Mitch pulling a black cloth over his head, which fitted turned out to be the head covering of a fairly creepy mask. The boy beneath the unmoving white face made a few sniffing noises before proclaiming: "This thing kinda smells like cheese."

"Check this out!" Cubey said excitedly, pulling a pair of flesh colored gloves with silver blade-looking extensions out from under a pile on a table of miscellaneous items. "I'm like that guy from the _Nightmare_ movies!"

Mitch turned to Cubey, splaying his fingers in the air. " _En garde_ , demon!"

Without really thinking about it, Cubey jabbed his sharp gloves at Mitch's face. Four of the fingers simply brushed against the mask, but the fifth slid into the mouth hole, and subsequently, down Mitch's throat. What ensued was the long haired boy behind the mask coughing and sputtering, while Cubey and Socks fought to keep standing, rolled up in laughter.

It looked like Mitch was seconds from turning the inside of the mask the color of his lunch. Alas, he didn't. Once he could breathe again, Mitch ripped off the mask and threw it down on the ground. "I hate you both."

Robot watched on in curious silence, as he often did when he had nothing to contribute to the human interaction. A display like this between Socks, Mitch and Cubey should have been warm and reassuring to him, after his nightmare about losing them. But nightmare had scared him so much that he wasn't sure if he felt resentful of their innocence, or glad for it. These humans would never know what it's like to worry about getting held back in school for the ongoing pursuit of data.

Robot then remembered the other task he needed to complete while visiting the shop. He made some beeping noises before printing out a sheet of paper, and heading to the counter. "Excuse me," he said in his most polite tone, "Would you be so kind as to hang this up in the window of your establishment? It's for a good cause."

The skinny man behind the glass counter snatched the flier out of Robot's claw, looking over it and scratching the five-o-click shadow on his chin.

Robot had stopped in at least twenty other shops up and down the streets as he and the boys had made their way from school to the costume shop. The few shops that did agree to hang the flier had scrutinized it the same way as this man, probably to make sure there wasn't any foul words or phallic imagery hidden somewhere that an immature kid would get a kick out of. Satisfied with the simple black and white flier, the man behind the counter lifted the divider and stepped out. "Where you want it?"

Robot was visibly gleeful of the approval: Or he was, until he turned and saw the window of the costume shop, at which point his enthusiasm melted and ran down the gutter. "Oh..."

The glass panes that made up the exterior of the shop was littered with various town fliers, Halloween themed posters, and costume packets. Even the glass on the door was completely crowded by layers of overlapping paper. Robot sighed. "Anywhere is fine, I suppose."

The man with the beard shrugged, and produced a roll of scotch tape from his pocket. After moving around several posters on the window pane right next to the door, he managed to make a spot for Robot's flier. After he was done, the automaton stepped outside to see how it looked like from the other side, to discover only the very middle portion of the flier was visible in the collage of papers. But at least all of the text was visible:

 **Want to help** ** _Nob's Arkaid_** **stay open? Come to the arcade on October the 30th to show your appreciation and loyalty. Snacks and drinks will be available.**

Robot now regretted that the flier he designed at 3am was so plain. Bold black text on a white sheet of paper, with a tiny 8-bit icon at the top representing an arcade machine. Being a robot, he lacked an artistic eye. And it showed, especially with how devoid of color it was, compared to all the other papers crammed around it. If he had had more connections, or more time, he could have enlisted the help of some of Polyneux's more artistic students to make a more impressive flier.

 _Shannon could have made a good flier,_ Robot thought. As reluctant as he was to admit that to himself, it was the truth. Shannon had artistic talent. But whether or not she would be willing to use that talent in public, specifically to help save Nob's Arkaid-the hangout people like Steve dubbed for babies only-was uncertain. Not to mention it would involve helping Robot himself out, and something about that was particularly doubtful to him.

Almost on cue, Robot swiveled his head to the sidewalk, in the direction of the sound of female voices. Having just turned onto the same street were Pam, June, and Shannon, with the two older friends arguing about something Robot couldn't make out.

In a blind panic, the automaton dashed back into the shop before he was seen. None of the boys had spoken once to the girls since Sunday, (at least as far as Robot was aware; Mitch and June were the only ones on speaking terms), and the prospect of having to interact with them again, especially Shannon, was unbearably awkward. Disks whirring, Robot looked left and right, before stumbling across a statue of a trooper from a popular science fiction movie series near the corner of the glass counter and the door. It stood just at his level, and was probably just moved out of the comic shop next door to advertise costumes related to the franchise. Robot snatched the helmet and kicked the statue behind the counter. He then slid the helmet on, and stood as still as possible.

Just as he feared, the girls' destination turned out to be the costume shop, and now that they were inside, Robot could hear everything they were saying, whether he wanted to or not.

"I'm telling you," Shannon said, sounding exasperated. "Homemade costumes are better."

"Shannon," Pam responded, "Do you really think that Clara is going to show up to her own party in a potato sack with permanent marker on it?"

"Not that any of us would know," Shannon retorted, folding her arms across her chest, "Seeing as none of us are invited."

"You say that as if you care," Pam snorted, the very implication that she would miss out on Clara's party being an insult.

"You know I don't," Shannon replied, somewhat irritated at the implication. It was clear that Pam was missing the point, so Shannon decided to bring up another. "I'm just saying that if we put our heads together, we could come up with something better than what the shops have. Look:"

To demonstrate, she headed over to the double rack with junior and misses costumes, opposite the men's racks. The first one her hands grabbed was a cheap looking black dress with purple lace, which she held out in front of her body. "Trampy witch, that's original." she said sarcastically, quickly letting go of the costume and letting it swing back into place on the rack, then grabbing another. "Trampy Vampire, seen it!" she said, letting go of that one and grabbing the next-a bring white one with a short skirt. "Trampy nurse, oh for cripes sake." Shannon then crossed several feet of similar repeating costumes until her eye caught something different. She grabbed the furry material and produced a curvy, full-body costume, covered in brown and black hair, and wearing a bright pink bikini. "Trampy... trampy Bigfoot's girlfriend?" Shannon asked out loud, with a nauseated look.

June came over and reached beneath Shannon on the lower half of the rack, grabbing a seemingly higher quality costume with a torn white shirt with a low cut, a black skirt, that came with a sword and eye patch. "How about this one? We could be... trampy space pirates." Like Shannon, now June looked doubtful.

An overweight man standing near the men's racks snorted upon hearing this. "I'll have you know, ladies, that _Venus of Manadoo_ is not just some 'trampy space pirate.' She is a terrifying Captain of her own accord, able to slice the heads off of her enemies faster than her male counterparts. Not to mention she is the most attractive member of the Lulu species."

With that, the man snatched a police officer costume off of the rack and headed to the counter. Shannon and June turned and looked at each other, both sticking their tongues out silently. "I am not too keen on the idea of dressing up either. Costumes seemed, I don't know, a lot more fun when we were younger, didn't they?" asked June, putting the costume back and looking at the women's rack with a critical eye.

"You're telling me," Shannon said, frustratedly cramming another lewd costume into the mess. "Even if we found anything, my mom would never let me wear a costume like these."

Meanwhile, Socks, Mitch, and Cubey were standing just out of the girls' line of sight, behind the men's costume racks. "Jeez," Cubey said quietly. "The girls sound miserable."

"They did this to themselves," Socks said, folding his arms. "Everything's about one up-ing each other. Makes you happy to be a guy, doesn't it?"

"Right on," answered Cubey.

"Totally," agreed Mitch.

Although he wasn't there to respond, Robot would have been hesitant before answering. Indeed, the girls seemed to be having less fun than the guys these days, but he wasn't so sure that boys in general were free of the guilt of trying to outdo each other, specifically in the area of impressing girls. And hearing something like this out of Socks of all people sounded very hypocritical, since before he started dating Clara, Socks would brag about pretty much anything and everything to get a girl's attention-being on the basketball team and having a real, live robot for a friend were just two things Robot could remember.

 _Is this really any way to think about my best friend, though?_ Robot thought, suddenly guilty.

Once again, the door to the shop swung open, and in stepped a person who truly caught Robot by surprise.

The girls quickly caught notice as well, but only Pam spoke. "Well, well," she said, folding her arms across her chest. "If it isn't the Benedict Arnold."

Stacey had been warily looking around the store left and right, but stopped dead in her tracks as soon as she heard Pam's voice. If it wasn't bad enough, Stacey was in her rainbow adorned cheer leading outfit, having worn it to school and having come straight from practice.

"What are you doing here?" Pam asked, not waiting a response. "Shouldn't you and Clara's other lackeys be buying your costumes at _Posh and Party_ at the mall?"

Even more surprising was when Shannon spoke up. "Come on, Pam, just ignore her."

"IGNORE her!" Pam exploded. "I outta _slug_ 'er! That's what she gets for choosing the phonies over us!"

If she was intimidated of Pam or genuinely guilty of her closeness to Clara at this point, her anger overruled everything. "So because I decided not to stop cheer leading, I'm just dead to you, then? That bites, Pam, and you know it does."

Pam simply 'hmph'ed. "Did you girls hear something? All I heard was a stupid bow wearing traitor."

Stacey gave her the most scornful look she was capable of. "OK, you have _totally_ no right to talk about traitors, Simon! You act like you care about a friend more than anybody else, until you find out one thing they do that bothers you, and then they're you're mortal enemy! You act like you're so much better than Clara because she's popular, but you're not! And I didn't come here to shop. I came to find Shannon and tell her that she doesn't have to listen to you anymore." She looked up at Shannon. "I'm going to Roger Prattman's party on Sunday, and you're invited, too. I knew him through a different set of friends and I'm still invited, because unlike you, Pam, he doesn't _care_ if I still talk to his ex!"

Maybe the restaurant staff from Sunday was too busy to break up Shannon and Clara's fight, but when it came to this particular shop owner, he'd witnessed the whole thing, and he wasn't happy. He came out from around the counter and stood between Pam and Stacey. "Hey! Hey! If you girls are going to stand around and shout and scare away my business, I want all of you out of my shop!"

"That's fine," Stacey answered first, storming for the door. She grabbed the handle from behind her back, hurt eyes still on Shannon, hands shaking the same way they had been yesterday, and glared at Pam as she pushed it open. "And tell June she's invited too." She looked at the new Polyneux student with a bit of sympathy breaking between her angry expression before flinging the door open.

As soon as the door clicked shut, Pam's mouth opened. "Idiot. When Clara finds out the traitor went to Roger's party, she can kiss her place on the squad goodbye. Then what friends will she have?"

Shannon wasn't sure Pam was correct about that. Stacey seemed fairly determined about going, so she had to have been certain that nothing negative was going to come of it. That, or perhaps spouting a tough will was enough to intimidate Clara into leaving her alone. Shannon remembered Stacey being tougher than herself. Maybe not as tough as Pam, but tough enough that she could do what she wanted to do, and Shannon envied this about her.

Still, Shannon, like Robot, couldn't explain what the mysterious shaking in her arms was about. Even from her distance of about six feet from the women's racks to the door, she noticed the tremble in her arms, even beneath her sleeves. Logic wanted to say it was just her nerves, but gut instinct told her it was something else.

"Come on, June, we're out of here," Pam said, grabbing the smaller girl by the wrist and heading for the door. "I need a corndog and some mustard. Coming, Shannon?"

Shannon's eyes were drawn to a white hockey mask laying on one of the accessory tables.

"Shannon?"

"Huh?" the brunette shook her head furiously. "Oh. Yeah. Coming."

Pam didn't even wait for Shannon, pushing through the door with June like an angry mother and her child. That gave Shannon the chance to gaze at the mask as she was heading out.

She was two feet from the door when she paused, turning and looking directly at the suspiciously short would-be trooper statue. "You can cut out the act, Robot, I know it's you under there."

Robot's world came to a screeching halt. He waited a full five seconds before, slowly, removing the helmet, and gazing directly into Shannon's eyes.

There was so much he wanted to say, and Robot couldn't bring himself to say anything. Likewise, it looked like Shannon could have wrote a book for everything her face was trying to convey to him: Sadness? Regret? Hurt? It was so hard to tell. But as always, she waited for him to speak first. After an agonizing minute of silence, Shannon had had enough waiting, and pushed through the door, letting it slam behind her.

Robot nearly forgot his friends were there until Socks, Mitch, and Cubey reared their heads, coming out from behind the men's racks. Robot wasn't certain that Shannon was oblivious to them having witnessed the drama, too, but if not, than Robot was the only one she cared about. Maybe hiding under the trooper helmet looked so ridiculous, she couldn't help but call him out. Or maybe she just wanted him to know that she knew he was there.

The automaton was at a loss for comment, so it was a good thing his human companions were not. "Did you see that?" asked Cubey, his voice barely above a whisper.

"I didn't know Pam wasn't talking to Stacey anymore," Mitch said.

"Me either," Socks said. "That was... pretty brave," Socks noticed, sounding humbled. "Standing up to herself like that."

Robot would have to agree, but everybody had their breaking point. And whatever Stacey was going through had to have contributed to her finally delivering that big speech.

How was Robot supposed to "look out for the girls" when Pam had them so tightly wrapped around her finger? It seemed to him like Clara had less of an effect on them than the angry redhead. Stacey might not have been in a good place right now, but she did have one thing: Her freedom.

Meanwhile, June may have had a backbone beneath all that shy, small statue, but even she was caught up in this war of real friends, and Robot was beginning to suspect the only reason she didn't try to get away from Pam now was the fear of being all alone and vulnerable to the mean girls. She was still new, after all.

But what about Shannon? Looking into her eyes just then, Robot was once again conflicted with his decision to let her go. Surely, Clara didn't scare Shannon. Not after the way Shannon called her out on the date night. But for whatever reason, Pam retained a fair amount of power over Shannon. And every time it looked like Shannon was about to have _her_ breaking point with her supposed 'best friend', she clammed up. Lost all her fight.

Robot decided that while June could be saved, there would never be a chance to reach the real Shannon Westerburg.

Not as long as whatever Simon says, goes.

* * *

 _Originally Published October 21st, 2018_

 _Author's Note for the Story:_

 **In this chapter, the tension between the girls reaches a boiling point, and Robot begins to better see why both Pam and Crowe earned their manipulative reputations.**

Comments/Criticism/Spam encouraged.

Are we actually going to get to Halloween in the story before Halloween in real life? I was hoping to but beats me dude.

 _Whatever Happened to Robot Jones?_ © Greg Miller & Cartoon Network


	20. The Arcade

Robot had forgot that he had set his alarm to wake up extra early on Saturday morning. The result was a very groggy, very annoyed automaton almost forgetting how to shut off one of his own internal devices in the shock of having being pulled from sleep mode at 20 minutes to 6. When he had finally remembered how to shut off the noise, he laid stretched out on the couch, fighting the incredible urge to roll over on his side and call everything off. But when a robot has a job to do, he cannot refuse it, even due to a low battery. So Jones thrust his body upward, this time gently folding the orange throw blanket and laying it down on the arm of the couch. After a moment of dread, he pushed himself to his feet to grab a quart of oil from the kitchen and mentally prepare himself for the day ahead of him.

Between everything else going on, Robot had greatly underestimated just how much work he had taken on by agreeing to organize an event to save Nob's Arkaid. It wasn't as simple as passing out fliers and bothering shop owners to hang them. Not having a part time job anymore, and with the other boys having little savings, they couldn't just go out and by the food that was promised on the flier. Over the previous two nights, Robot had acquired the numbers of student's parents who had agreed to contribute to Polyneux's annual bake sale and asked if they would be willing to whip up something that could be given out at the arcade. The result was two dozen cupcakes, a cake, and someone's dad who had agreed to run a popcorn machine. And just last night, Mitch's mother, who had once been a vendor at a local ballpark, agreed to spin cotton candy with a portable machine, as well as generously donated a couple liters of pop and cups.

It boggled Robot just how many different kinds of foods humans consumed, and just how powerful a persuasive tool it supposedly was. But as people around school began asking him about the event, the food was one of the biggest questions.

With that covered, there was the matter of actually managing the event to take care of. James was a stubborn guy who typically refused help, having run the arcade so long by himself, but the boys knew how busy the arcade used to get. And if they somehow managed to draw even half of the crowds Robot was hoping to make, James was going to be swamped.

Being the tallest of the group, it was decided that Socks looked the nearest to authoritative, and he would be the one helping James sell tokens. He wasn't completely inexperienced in sales: The Basketball team had been forced sell bite sized candies last year after Madman had been too cheap to buy new uniforms, and while nowhere near the best salesman, he did bank _some_ money. If he could only get over his anxiety, Robot thought he would be perfect to help operate the transactions. And the bonus of having Socks be the face of the sales was his popularity connected to Clara seemed to have spread more interest to the event, even though Clara herself would not be there. (Not like anybody would be surprised, even if she didn't run Saturday cheer practice that day.)

Socks himself had reported asking a few of the girls on the cheer team on Thursday if they would be wiling to donate some snacks, but it became clear soon that they were not interested. One of them even whispered to another on the way out of the doors about Robot's desperation for being Valedictorian and doing anything he could akin to charity to add to his record.

This comment made Robot's face burn as hot as a clothes iron. He was tired of having his intentions misunderstood. Though with all the manipulation going on at this school, it didn't really come as a surprise to him that the popular girls would be suspicious of Robot.

Then there were the repairs: Before closing, Nob's suffered from a dozen technical problems. The light bulbs in the bathroom were still missing, several of the games had jammed buttons, and some of the sockets were showing worrying sparks when a game was plugged back in. Robot did some of the repairs on Thursday, while Cubey and his father did the rest on Friday. Mr. Cubinacle even gave paint touch ups to several parts of the main room with his own extra paint.

The boys joined in with their bikes and carried the food to the arcade from the houses of those parents who agreed to bake but not to deliver. Mitch's mom even agreed to use her car to pick up some of the baked goods as she dropped off the cotton candy and popcorn machines to be used the next day. For as embarrassing as it was to have their parents contributing to the event, Robot sighed and admitted that they would be far from where they needed to be if they hadn't have gotten help from the human adults. Which made him feel sort of guilty that he hadn't even mentioned anything to his own parents.

There were two big reasons for this: The first being that Mom and Dad units were notorious for screwing up human related events. And the second being that even if Robot had watched them become socialized and better behaved around humans in the past few years, he didn't really want them to have to worry about this on top of the drama at the factory.

Since Robot's run-in with Crowe on Wednesday, several of the robots had quit mid-shift and walked out. Not just on the job, but on the factory itself: Their employer, and their home. JNZ didn't have a good reputation with the city as it was, for having a dozen or so robots leave and become homeless, when Harris Jones disappeared in the seventies. To city officials, this looked like JNZ was losing control of its automatons, and with paranoia of a robotic uprising at its highest, the city threatened to throw some hefty fines at the company for potentially putting the public at risk.

When Claymore got control of the factory, he redesigned the program for which robots were assigned their tasks so that it was understood by client and robot that most of the mobile ones did not sleep on the premises, but at the client's home, as it was fantasized that domesticated robots would do decades ago, when the technology wasn't there yet. Clients were more often satisfied with having robots they could treat like personal appliances than visiting servants, and there was no legal way to accuse JNZ of letting robots "escape" when they did not reside on the factory after they were built. It was one of the reasons, Robot thought, why it was important that he and his parents live in their own home, rather than live out of the factory. Even if Dad unit's position had always had him working inside the factory itself, it was an excuse for Claymore to write-off liability for instance where, for instance, Dad unit decided to go crashing through a wall instead of using the door.

Of course, there were exceptions. Crystal in particular came to Robot's mind. As being the only living member of Marvin Claymore's 'collection', which was a small museum case of dead, non-sentient automaton oddities from years gone by, Crystal was liable to put Claymore at risk for a lawsuit she decided to run away.

Knowing how badly she hated everything about her situation, Robot knew the only thing holding her back was fear of Crowe's wrath.

Jones himself wasn't the only Robot who was in on this effort. He got adult units Muff and Manifold, who had driven him to the Gala, to carry some collapsible tables from the factory to use at the arcade to hold the food. As maintenance robots, this was right up their line of work, only they weren't getting paid for it. They had agreed to do it just because they were fond of the little robot who used to reside in the factory, and unlike most of the teenage JNZ units, suspect Robot was anything but a willing subject to Crowe's authority. The tables had been delivered yesterday and were set up to the very centimeter that Robot had asked them to be placed.

It was all coming together so well that Robot went to sleep late last night, nearly forgetting how much else there was left to do. Since he was technically running the event, he had to oversee the place before it opened at 9am and make sure everything was ready. He chugged his morning oil, picked up the trash from the kitchen (Robot's father was prohibited from burning their trash anymore, as city ordinances claimed that unlike his neighbors, who were burning leaves this time of year, it was a unnecessary fire hazard), and ran for the door, not giving his chore-busy mom and dad a second to stop him and order him to do something else, let alone ask him what he was up to.

By the time he was stuffing trash into the metal can that sat on the curb, Robot became aware of how cold it was outside. The early morning sky was an industrial gray, the color of a multistory car-park at night. The sun and warmth that had teased the kids in school all week gone, now that it was the weekend. And like most days before Halloween on record, there was a high probability of rain in the forecast. With the trees having lost all their green, and the grass turning yellow, it was clear that summer was over, and any warm stints left remaining in this year were used up.

It was nothing Robot couldn't handle. In fact, autumn weather suited his needs the best. His internal fan which most robots had, which usually ran three fourths of the year, temporarily shut itself off, giving Robot a slight increase in his power savings. And his coolant was still at a quarter of a tank. His internal heater, which was mostly an emergency device, only ran when the temperature dipped near zero, was not needed at the time. But Robot still wore the jacket that he'd used when he dragged his friends the library the day he learned about and became obsessed with discovering if Andy Fields was a real person.

When he first began school, and became used to seeing many humans every day, as opposed to maybe a handful for an entire year, he began noticing the various types of cloth humans wore to protect their skin and stay clean. And although it at the time seemed like yet another sign of inferiority to robots that Grampz unit was always going on about, over time, he began seeing some appeal to it. Same as he did for using his skateboard, that he snatched from the back yard, that he had used to use to study this aspect of teenage culture. Both of these items had the strange effect of making Robot feel somehow closer to the humans that he had worked so hard to integrate with. Using them both, rocketing down the suburban sidewalks on a skateboard while wearing a jacket, Robot almost felt like he could blend in. Become indistinguishable among his friends as "the robot."

Robot remembered how Clara seemed to be aware of who he was before even meeting him. Before the Valedictorian announcements, there was nothing that made Robot popular, and Heaven knew Clara couldn't care less about Socks's friends. In fact, most people knew who he was before even asking. He was sometimes introduced as "the town's official robot," even though there was no such a title. Being "the robot" once seemed like his permanent label at Polyneux , one that he wasn't sure was really ever worn away, even when the student body had grown used to him over the course of these past two years.

It was a good thing that Grampz unit was not of sound mind at the moment. If he saw Robot like this now, there's no telling how much he'd harp about it. And somehow, with Grampz practically out of commission, Robot felt a stronger paing of guilt than he used to.

Everything was going exactly the way Grampz had said it would. One day he would not be around-and even though Grampz wasn't dead yet, that it was nearly impossible to activate him right now made it feel like it. And just like he predicted, the task of studying humans not only required Robot to do the most basic of integrating, but to _want_ to integrate, fully. To not be "the other" anymore.

In a way, he felt more treacherous to his own kind the further he embraced human customs. So... why did he do it?

Because he was a teenager. And as human teenagers did, he went with the flow.

Being a robot, assignments always came before everything else, even the tasks he had given himself. Keeping himself busy was his best way of pushing personal thoughts out of his head, especially the ones that were emotionally overwhelming, like Crowe's idea that Robot wouldn't graduate.

With the exertion of speeding down the empty sidewalks with nothing in his way, Robot was already beginning to feel groggy again by the time he reached the center of town. He just hoped that he could keep his mind focused on everything he needed to get done.

Around here was a lot of traffic, which was odd, at least for this time on a Saturday morning. Cars were zooming by two a minute heading towards the business strip. He himself couldn't fathom why. Was the shoe shop doing it's bi-yearly blowout sale? Even then, it seemed like a lot of people.

By the time he reached the corner to the street Nob's sat on, he was stuck at the stoplight behind a small group of kids, who couldn't have been older than ten. Curiosity wanted to ask them where they were headed, but knowing well by now that being a self operating robot made most humans uneasy, it was in his best interests to not to creep out strangers.

Robot gave himself an air cushion between himself and the three elementary school boys before he crossed, picking up his skateboard and choosing to walk now, since he wasn't moving very fast anymore. Cars were parked on either side of the street, ignoring the towing postings since they didn't apply unless it was snowing. The only time he'd ever seen the center of town this densely populated was the night before a new _Space Wars_ movie came to town. The grammar school boys capped off what Robot suddenly realized was an unmoving line that stretched all the way down the sidewalk.

Somehow, the obvious didn't click in Robot's head until he heard a familiar voice shout out his name. "ROBOT!"

The automaton's head swiveled drastically to the right. Standing on the opposite corner was Cubey Cubinacle, still in his PJs, with his autumn jacket hastily thrown over. Besides him was Mitch, who seemed to have gotten the notice of whatever this was, sooner, since he at least had time to throw his regular white shirt over his boxer shorts.

Waiting for an opening in the traffic, Robot skated across the street, coming to a sharp stop right in front of his human friends. "What's going on? Why are you guys up already? What's with all the people?"

"Robot," Mitch said slowly, "These are _our_ customers."

" _What!"_ Robot's eyes extended from his head, increasing the power of his vision as it went like binoculars. Sure enough, as he aimed his vision for the doors of Nob's Arkaid, that was where the line started. People, as far as the horizon, standing outside of the place the boys used to be made fun of for patronizing.

"Mitch's mom got a call that there was some sort of 'commotion' down at the arcade, thinking she was in charge of the full thing."

"We tried calling you but nobody answered," Mitch explained.

"Oh..." Robot said, looking embarrassed. In his rush to get out the door, it never occurred to him that anything like this would happen, let alone that he should be on the lookout for a news call. Mom and Dad units must have silenced the phone during one of their small house renovations, like they had done once or twice before.

Being grateful he'd gotten up when he did, Robot took in the sight once more. The people weren't standing around, arguing about waiting. They were chatting, and laughing, as if they were waiting in line for a good movie premier. "They're all really here for us?"

"That's what they said," Cubey replied. "Socks went to call for James and tell him to come early. They might be happy right now, but I don't think they'll want to wait much longer."

Robot nodded. A crowd even half this size was far more than he had hoped for, and to keep them happy was all he could think to do.

A wild panting was heard as Socks finally appeared, sweat under his pits, inhaler in hand. "Guys... guys, we got a problem!" he said, trying to catch his breath.

"That new anti-persperent not working for yah?" Mitch asked, jokingly.

"Yeah, the lines are bad, but look, Socks, they're happy," Cubey said.

"It's not that!" Socks shouted. "James isn't coming!"

Mitch, Cubey and Robot looked at each other, in disbelief. "What do you mean? He has to be here! This is _his place!"_

 _"_ I tried..." Socks said, in between drags on his inhaler, "I tried to get him to come. He said to call it off. I asked him why he changed his mind, he wouldn't say. I begged him, but he hung up."

"Ugh! James is the most unreliable-!" Cubey started, slapping his face, but couldn't finish without going into a full on rant.

"What are we gonna do?" asked Mitch.

All three of the boys turned to Robot. He was the show-runner, here. Any problems rested on his shoulders.

This whole morning, Robot was emotionally bracing himself to show up to a bust, his best efforts at something having failed again. But this time, his work had not been in vain. There were people here. Lots of people. Everything had come together so smoothly, and he wasn't about to let one variable ruin the whole thing. "We're just going to have to carry out the event without him," Robot said, trying to sound mature and confident.

"Us?" asked Socks, jittery, "But we're just-"

"Kids, I know," Robot cut him off, rolling his eyes. "Well, we may be kids, but when the only adult in charge is acting like a kid, the kids must act like adults. Socks, you are going to have to manage the counter alone," Robot told him.

"Me?" Socks asked. "Oh... OK."

"And Mitch and Cubey, you're in charge of getting people in and out of the doors. Let no more than fifty people in that door at once. When someone leaves, another goes in. Understood?"

Mitch and Cubey looked at each other and shrugged. Security was technically what they'd been assigned already. There was just going to be a much more tight packed room they were in charge of.

"I'll do as much of the rest as I can," Robot said, pulling Nob's spare key from his pocket. Thankfully, James wasn't holding the only copy. It was strange that James had been so confident in what Robot was doing, enough to give him a key to the event, and then ditch when the big day came. Then again, maybe giving Robot the key had been the point. "If someone starts trouble, you let me know. Affirmative?"

"Sure," Mitch said, running a hand through the back of his hair as they walked down the sidewalk against the line, "But I don't think there is gonna be any."

"Why is that?" Robot asked, as they neared the doors.

"Well, look at 'em," the long haired boy pointed to the line. "They're all little kids... and their parents."

Robot observed the line again. True to his word, all the children he saw were too young to go to Polyneux. And despite those roughly fourth graders he saw crossing the street, the vast majority of children were even younger than that. At least half a dozen were so small, they were being held by their parents. Robot was boggled.

"What exactly did the fliers you put up around town say, Robot?" asked Socks.

Robot shook his head and shrugged. "Just... to come support Nob's."

"Well, it got somebody's attention," Mitch said. "But not anybody from Polyneux."

Robot was deeply curious now. He approached the first person in line, a dad with a son who looked only about five years old. "Boy, this place has changed, hasn't it?" the man said to the woman standing in line right behind him. "I grew up in this town, and I remember back when this place was just a pinball machine and some pool tables."

"I remember it the same way!" the woman told him. "I think it was called _Ricket's_ or something, right?"

" _Rocky's_ , actually," she corrected, gently. "My uncle worked here."

" _Rocky's_?" Robot asked, "You mean, all the adults here used to go to Nob's back when it was just a pool joint?"

"Oh yeah!" the dad said, patting his squirming 5 year old on the head. "I was here like, all the time. It was the best place to hang out on the weekends."

"I didn't even now it was still open," said another man, next in line behind the mom. "But I'm happy to show the place some appreciation before it closes."

"Before it closes?" Robot murmured, grimly. "You mean you didn't know this event was for saving-"

But Robot's explanation was cut off by the sound of screeching tires, zooming down the street. A blue van with a satellite dish and the initials "WBM2" came to a sharp stop right in front of Nob's Arkaid.

"Whoa!" Mitch shouted, "It's the news!"

The crowd watched as all the doors of the news van swung open in sync, like the swat team. Out the back doors came to heavyset gentleman hoisting a large camera and attached equipment. Out the driver's side was a young, olive skinned woman with a bright, earnest smile, who immediately came around with a makeup bag to assist an older woman with a blond bowl cut, who stood with her hands on her hips as she was caked and lipsticked.

"Be sure to get the crow's feet," she snipped at the shorter, heavier girl in a low voice. "I can't believe I got up at a quarter to five for this..."

"Here comes our segment, Becky, we're cutting from the desk to live on in five..." said one of the camera-men, having stationed the camera to the right side of Nob's doors. "... four... three... two... "

When the younger woman stepped away, the blond anchor woman named Becky raised her microphone to her mouth and hastily wiped the dirty look off of her face, replacing it with a strong smile. "Good morning. I'm standing here in the middle of Center and Diversity, and as you can see behind me," she motioned to the line of people down the block, some of which 'WHOOP'ed and cried out excitedly as they realized they were on live TV, "There is quite a massive crowd waiting to get into the establishment currently known as _Nob's Arkaid_."

The cameramen used their combined strength to angle the massive camera up at the building, zooming in on the tattered sign and colorful graphic art, weather beaten and all.

"Nob's Arkaid has been a staple of youth entertainment for the past twelve years, this location having been the site of an earlier business aimed at teens, the popular Rocky's Club. But recently, the owner of Nob's has decided to close up shop for good. Which is why all of these fine people are out here today, to support the successor to Rocky's, and to pay their respects to another fine business that is about to shut it's doors forever."

As the crowd 'whooped' and cheered for an early opening, Robot stood there, shell shocked. Did nobody understand that they were trying to _save_ Nob's?

"Now," asked Becky to the first man in line, "To whom must we credit for pulling together this event?"

The man shrugged. "No idea, I just came 'cause of the flier."

"Me too," said the woman right behind him.

The reporter looked perturbed, having caught herself in an awkward moment of silence, as if nothing like this was supposed to happen while _she_ was live. Seizing the moment, Socks waved frantically at the cameramen. "OH OH! Over here! It's Robot Jones!"

"Socks..." Robot started. If Robot had any telltale signs of not wanting to be on camera, than Socks had missed them completely. On cue, the cameraman turned 90 degrees to face the little robot, and Becky swooped in, nearly knocking Robot's chin with her microphone thrust in his face.

"Well well well, what a surprise," she said, smiling like it hurt. "It seems not only human kids love the craze that is video games. Tell me, son, what compelled you to do all this?"

All of Robot's joints tensed up. Being on TV he might have been able to handle if he had been expecting it. But being thrust in front of a camera, on little sleep, made all of his thoughts blend to mush before he could speak. "Uh... I just... love video games..." he said, aware that he was essentially repeating the reporter's commentary. He shook the lingering sleep out of his head. "And... I want to keep the arcade _open_."

For the briefest moment, Becky scowled with actual contempt for Robot's modesty, but like a magician, she made it disappear in the blink of an eye. "You heard it here, folks. A middle schooler who loves his little games so much he doesn't want to see them go."

"But if the event works-" Robot protested, but was cut off.

"Hey, when is this thing gonna open?" shouted a voice from the crowd. "I gotta dentist appointment at 10."

Along with him, the crowd began to murmur. They all should have read the time on the flier, but it was useless arguing with a crowd this size. Robot sighed. "I guess we could open a little early. We're not waiting on James..." He reached for the door, put in the key, and unlocked it, pushing it open as if it were his own business. Suddenly, a flood of people were at his back, and then the doors were slammed all the way open, as small children and their parents pushed in around him, flooding the arcade with more people than Robot had ever seen before.

Mitch and Cubey were totally helpless. In the effort to shut the doors to prevent more than fifty people inside at once, they were nearly trampled. When the flood finally trickled down, Robot and the human boys made eye contact. None of them looked like they had any idea that could explain what had just happened.

Socks took a drag on his inhaler and prepared to operate the cash register. Thankfully, at least a dozen of the games in the arcade were new enough that they ran on quarters directly, rather than tokens, so his counter wasn't flooded with too many people for Socks to handle.

The day was a whirlwind from there on out. One of the things Robot had overlooked about the later days of the arcade was the quietness. He could actually hear the subtle noises the games made, sometimes even the exhaust fans blowing, when he'd had the arcade to himself and and his friends, and he was betting that they had taken notice, too. Now, between the sound of toddlers crying, adults yelling, and children shouting, it was a miracle that he could even hear what his friends had to say. Thankfully, they all had their walkie-talkies, so he could hear what they had to report about was going on one side of the arcade as opposed to having to crawl through a moving wall of human bodies to see for himself. Robot felt more and more like a security guard and less of an event runner as the day went on.

Thankfully their overcrowding issue seemed to take care of itself. After the first initial rush of people, only small groups and sometimes individual people came inside. With an average stay duration of about 2 hours, the crowd became significantly less overwhelming by 10am-the time the event was actually supposed to start, according to his plans. And Robot counted his blessings every time a family with a screaming child or arguing parents vacated.

From then on out, despite the noise and the anxiety it brought, the event was almost... manageable. When Robot could finally cut back through the floor to get to the counter, Socks looked exhausted, but like Robot, he must have found the strength somewhere to keep going.

And for being security, there were few instances where he had to assert his authority. Aside from kicking a few boys out of the girl's bathroom and telling a child not to draw on the wall, he totally avoided conflict. And so far, all those instances were with younger kids-those Robot felt comfortable asserting his authority over.

Since the arcade had opened so much earlier than he had anticipated, Robot was running on his last bit of gas, and it was still hours before they were set to close. He had no idea if the sales made today would sway James to hold off on putting the games in storage, let alone pay his rent. In all honestly, he was too tired to think about it.

When he'd been pulling this event together, his enthusiasm was driven by a different experience in mind: One where he calmly ran the event while getting to show off his video game skills in front of patrons. This ended up never happening. Robot hadn't so much as touched one of the games since he'd arrived, having so much else to do.

It wasn't until late into the afternoon that he would have his first encounter with what he suspected was going to be actual trouble. His head was spinning with the numerous things to keep track of when he heard a voice from below his line of sight. "Hey!"

To hear someone _beneath_ him was unusual. Robot Jones was so used to looking _up_ at most people when speaking to them, thanks to his shortness. When the voice repeated, Robot lowered his clipboard and aimed his overworked eyes on a bald headed boy, shorter that Cubey. Like most of the arcade's customers today, he was too young even for middle school-second grade, maybe and Robot didn't even realize he had a bias against taking young children seriously until he saw how badly his boy was trying to get his attention-tugging at his jacket sleeve. "Oh!" was all Robot could think to say.

"Are you... in charge?" asked the small boy, fingers still rhythmically tugging at Robot's jacket, even though he was well aware that Robot was paying attention to him now. "'Cause I got a problem."

Robot sputtered out a response, stuffing his clipboard under his armpit. The whole day this far had been a blur, images of humans Robot had never seen before spinning in his recent memory banks. More than once today he had to speak out and order children to quit drawing on the walls, or stuffing massive wads of bath tissue into the toilet in the men's restroom. He felt more like a daycare worker than an event organizer. The whole day had been nothing but Robot fixing the problems the kids were inflicting upon the poor arcade, so it was kind of surreal to have one of them come to _him_ with a problem. "I-I-I am. I am in charge. What is the trouble?"

"There's some big kid hogging the racing game," the boy explains, turning and pointing accusingly at the roofed twin driving games standing on the other end of the dark room, "That won't let anybody else play."

 _Bigger kid?_ Robot gulped. Was he talking about a teenager? So far, the only ones who had entered that building today, besides the boys that were helping Robot keep this event running were apathetic teens who tagged along with their parents and younger siblings, and he thought all of those families were gone by now.

"That big kid at the counter said you'd take care of it," the child insisted, earnest in his voice. Robot spun and looked over at Socks, who was still standing behind the register. He himself had found a moment of rest, as the traffic coming into the arcade was slowing down. At seeing Robot look for him, Socks was making stressed swiping motions with his right hand in front of his neck. Clearly, he and Robot had jumped to the same worried conclusion, and Socks was too afraid to deal with whatever 'big kid' was causing trouble. Robot sighed, wondering how Clara would react to finding out how much of a big chicken her boyfriend was. Then again, in the back of his head, Robot suspected that Clara didn't honestly believe that Socks was the man among boys that she paraded him around to be. Not even Clara was that oblivious.

Robot peered over the small boy's shoulders-which was easy, since he was taller than the boy-but couldn't see. Even when he got on his tip toes, he couldn't make out the tall figure sitting in the bucket seat, in front of the one working racing game. But at his side was an even smaller boy, also bald, who was screaming at whoever was sitting in the seat to 'give him a turn.'

He didn't think any puberty-stricken guy would be as heartless as to take a swing at a little kid, but considering how long that kid had probably been harassing him, Robot thought it would be better to take care of this situation before it got messy. He let Tugger pull him in the direction of the twin driving games, the silhouette of the mysterious seat-hogger getting just barely clearly the closer they got. But in the atmospheric darkness of the arcade, it was still difficult to make out what kind of threat Robot was up against.

As they walked, Robot couldn't help but watch little Tuggar, who still hadn't let go of his jacket. He was beginning to regret not having taken off the human clothing hours ago, because then the little boy would have nothing to latch onto. And Robot could brake for a run if he actually thought he was walking into his own murder. Yet, Robot found the experience oddly satisfying. It was just last year around this time that he had made one of his worst surprise encounters with a little kid-Mrs. Raincoat's toddler son, who had been visiting the middle school and had run away crying just upon seeing Robot from a five foot distance. It was one of the worst feelings he'd ever had. He was used to intimidating older humans with his techy exterior, his uncanny movements, his emotionally limited voice, but never a small child. And the fact that there was virtually nothing he could do to prevent this from ever happening again made it all the worse.

Yet here was a small child that, was not only not afraid of Robot, but who was dragging him around like a regular teenage human. Like the fact that he was a machine hadn't even registered on Tuggar's mind-only that Robot was older, and therefore an authority figure in this situation. What was different here? Tuggar looked maybe two years older than Raincoat's son, that could be one. Or was it the jacket that made Robot seem more... human?

Tuggar's footsteps stops before Robot had realized how close they had gotten to the racing games. And it felt like slow motion as he looked away from the little boy, up at the figure sitting in the seat. "S-Sh- _Shannon?!_ "

It wasn't a mirage. It wasn't a look alike. The 'bigger kid' who little Tuggar had complained about was none other than Robot's ex-crush, and social enemy for all that was concerned, if the alliances were as black and white as everybody was treating them. When picturing the stubborn teenager who was refusing to let little kids have a turn with the racing game, Robot wasn't picturing a girl. He certainly wasn't picturing _this_ girl. "What are you doing here?"

"Building a birdhouse," Shannon replied sharply, eyes glued to the screen. "What does it look like I'm doing?"

He underwhelming reaction to seeing him standing there was the most surprising. In most social settings, Shannon audibly groaned upon his approach. This time, however, she barely acknowledged him with anything more than a quick glance, and then turned her eyes right back to the game. As if she thought she heard someone she knew approaching, realized she was wrong, and then went back to the game.

"Make her give up the seat!" squeaked Tuggar's little brother, who looked only about a year younger than him.

"I said, 'buzz off' Eddie!" Shannon shouted at the kid. "There's plenty of games to play around here!"

"Eddie?" Robot asked.

"She babysits us sometimes," Tuggar explained of Shannon. "That's how we know her."

"And this is why we hate her!" Eddie cried out in frustration. "She's so selfish!"

Hearing this, Shannon only grunted, not taking her eyes off of the screen again for even a second. It was a strange sight for the automaton. The gripe didn't seem to have any kind of affect on Shannon, even though it was a pretty awful claim-to be hated by the kids you babysit. Robot felt like they could have said anything about her-that she was a bugger-eating dinosaur, for example, and she would have just kept on playing, unable to get any more angry than she already was.

Robot gulped again. To think he was afraid of a big, stranger teen sitting in this seat. He quickly realized just how much he feared Shannon's wrath than any random guy's. How was he going to get out of this situation?

He could try and fix the second racing game, but that thing had been kaput for months. For the sake of doing so, Robot crept around the front of of the twin machines and had a look at the broken one. The cord for it was still plugged into the wall, along with the one that was working. Suddenly, Robot had a devious idea. He deliberately made some banging sounds, loudly opening up the backs of both machines to emphasize his opening them up, to compare their internal workings, using his eyes as a flashlight. While inside the machine that was still working, he looked around to make sure nobody was watching, and then quietly _'pop'_ ed the cord out from the wall. Instantly, Robot noticed the glow from the one working machine fizzle and fade to black, causing the boys to shout and cry.

Robot peeked his head up from between the open space of the twin monitors, trying to look as surprised as they were. "I am sorry, guys," he told the boys. "It would appear that both games are no longer in operation-they are quite old, it seems."

"That's not fair!" Eddie shouted. "That was my favorite game!"

Tuggar just sighed and took him by the shoulder. "It's OK, Eddie, mom is probably looking for us, anyway. Thanks for helping, Mr. Robot-man."

As Tuggar led his little brother away from the racing games, and soon out the door, Robot turned his gaze to Shannon, who's expression hadn't changed, even as the game she had been working on had shut off right in front of her. In fact, her hands being gripped low on the wheel was the only sign Robot had that Shannon was even aware that the game had shut off!

In fear of facing her wrath, Robot quickly plugged the game back on, the machine buzzing back to life instantly, and hopped from the opening between the monitors into the bucket seat right next to Shannon. Her gaze was still locked into the seat when she finally spoke to him. "Clever," she said, coldly, "But I didn't know robots could lie like that."

Robot ignored commenting on the idea that robots couldn't lie, like it was too obvious to acknowledge, like asking if chickens only fly at night like other birds when nobody is watching. "And I didn't know you babysat," he said to her, questioningly.

The racing game's insistent "insert coins" screen flashed in front of their faces, casting shadows onto Shannon's hardened expression. Robot was aware that he ended what might have very well been a winning game for Shannon, and almost offered to pay for her next game, but found himself too shy to interrupt her as she reached into the cup at her feet, and deposited two tokens into the slot. From there, Shannon used the wheel to hurriedly select first choice of every customization option and plop her quickly onto a course-presumably the same thing she'd done multiple times today. Robot had no idea how long Shannon had been there, but since he hadn't actually had a reason to get close to the racing games today, especially this set of games tucked into a corner in the far back of the room, opposite the entrance and James' counter, he suspected it had been hours. And that was not one of the questions Robot felt comfortable discussing with her right now.

This particular game was stuck in what Robot had classified as the 'dead game corner,' where James moved the older, less impressive, or totally fried games until they were repaired. Some of these games were older that most of the little kids who were here today. With most of the young kids playing the newer, flashier games near the front of the arcade, this left Robot and Shannon with considerable distance from everybody else. And with the surrounding darkness from lack of working games to act as a sort of barrier between themselves and everybody else, Robot worked up a sort of courage he didn't know he would have. "Listen, I believe we need to talk."

"'Bout what?" asked Shannon, still not taking her eyes off of the road. "You spying on me, Pam and June yesterday?"

"Not just that," Robot said. Although he got nervous at the reminder that that had happened.

"'Bout how you slammed me down in the hallway, make me look like a total jerk in front of everybody and just left me?"

"When did I-?" Robot started to ask, looking annoyed at what he thought was Shannon exaggerating the truth. But then, he realized she didn't mean 'slam down' literally. He remembered, then: Right after Friday the 13th that year. When he had run face-first into Shannon in the hallway.

Shannon had wanted to apologize. She had wanted to _talk_ about what had happened on the bus, all those months ago, and he had _refused!_ That little bird, that little living anger inside of him had prevented him from considering forgiving her. And he had just walked away, not letting her get the last word in. It wasn't even satisfying then. It was just less infuriating than letting her try to convince him to trust her again.

The memory of his and Shannon's very last interaction before the group date came back with such startling clarity, buried beneath his many responsibilities and stresses, that he audibly gasped. "Oh..." he said, a heartbroken expression taking over his face. "Maybe I do need to apologize."

He waited patiently then, for the little voice inside to scream at him, to tell him what a monster Shannon was. To bite his tongue and tell her she deserved everything that he said to her. He waited, but the voice never came. It was so relieving, he fell back against the back of the bucket seat and sighed. Did this mean that after all this time, his heart had finally healed from what loving Shannon had done to him? Did the pain from the burned out crush finally end?

When he looked at Shannon now, he could just about believe it. She was still Shannon-strange and fascinating Shannon Westerburg, but now, his emotions regarded her a lot less severely. And with that came a startling clarity. He found that, after the fear that she was going to bash his light bulb in, that he could look at her for an extended amount of time without shaking, or feeling like his exhaust was going to blow. She was human, all right. Unspectacular as any other. And yet, still intriguing to Robot in many ways. Including right now, watching her cruise through pixelated terrains on an 8 bit screen.

She waited until her digital vehicle flipped over and crashed, ending the game and bringing up the mocking coin screen again, before turning and looking at Robot in the eyes for the first time that day. And Robot was taken aback by how quickly her expression had changed. From pent up anger and frustration, to sadness. And tiredness. "You're forgiven, I guess," she croaked, resting her arm against the top of the wheel, not bothering to drop in any coins. "But, I still feel bad about everything."

"You don't have to!" Robot insisted, feeling awful. "It isn't your fault that school is just one big popularity race. It's not your fault that..." he trailed off. He didn't have the courage to admit it.

Sure, maybe Shannon had disrespected him in public a few times, played his pitying savior on that bus. That seemed to irrelevant now, after a significant chunk of the school openly celebrated his nomination for Valedictorian. He'd accept her apology for being his friend in private, and then not standing up for him when he really was the school's biggest loser. But she didn't have to apologize for not loving him back. Humans couldn't control their emotions anymore than sentient robots could. And he couldn't expect her to treat him any differently over a crush that, for all anybody knew, was just a rumor-Clara's rumor, in fact, if Shannon was right.

When the game was on its coin screen, it played no music, which gave Robot and Shannon a whole lot of quiet, and a lot of question over what to fill it with. Suddenly, Robot realized why Shannon didn't want to give up this particular game: It was private over here.

But then there raised another question. "I didn't know you still played," Robot said carefully.

"I stopped coming here by myself after sixth," Shannon told him, turning the wheel of the game slowly left and right, hitting its limit and then steering. "But, last year I brought Riley and Eddie here because they were bored, and they liked it, so we came back a few times. And" she said, almost smiling. "I forgot how much I liked it here." She turned and finally looked at Robot now. "And then I saw your flier on the window of the costume shop, and I guess I didn't realize how much I would miss this place if it was suddenly gone."

"You knew it was mine?" Robot asked. He hadn't put his name on the flier or anything. "When you saw it?"

She gave him a look like it was obvious. "Robot, nobody at that school cares about video games more than you do. Not even Cubey. I saw you looking at the flier before you saw us and ran inside. Then I looked at it on my way out. And then I figured if anybody was behind it-and they only had realized how ridiculous of a plan it was while looking at it behind the cluttered glass of a costume shop-it was probably you."

" _Hey_ ," Robot said, narrowing his eyes a little. "At least I tried to _do_ something about Nob's closing!"

"And it worked... sorta," Shannon said, pointing her thumb back at the more well-lit section of the arcade. In between the blend of game sounds and smashing of buttons and trampling of feet on the cold, carpet-less floor, not to mention the cries of little despairing gamers when they lost, there was now music playing. One of the adults-here on nostalgia strictly, the teens guessed-was playing music out of a boombox. It wasn't anything good, of course. Not anything one of Polyneux's own DJs would pick out, but of course, they were too cool to be here right now.

They were playing some slow sixties ballad about a girl going to far with her parents money, but the kids playing the games up front didn't seem to notice or care. The music was distant from where Robot and Shannon were, however, and it nearly helped with the feeling of privacy they were having over here.

"Thank you," he said, curtly. "So... do you think, then, that we saved-"

"Not a chance in heck," Shannon answered, as a wide grin crossed her face.

That comment should have hurt. And it did. But it had been so long that Robot had seen a genuine smile out of Shannon, way back when he stumbled upon Shannon laughing at a joke Mitch had made during the triple date, that he couldn't help but smile himself. Girlfriend of his dreams or not anymore, her smile was still beautiful.

He looked away before he let himself think too much about what she _wasn't_ to him, anymore. "Do you suppose that I am naive?" he asked her.

"Well, maybe a little," she started to explain. But upon seeing Robot's hurt expression, Shannon backtracked. "Look, it's not that I don't appreciate what you're trying to do," she said, carefully. "Everybody here appreciates it. But you're a robot, you come from a company, right? You know how this stuff works." She spoke as if it pained her to be honest. "Businesses fail. Time goes on. I know you tried your best, but at the end of the day, there was nothing you could do about it. I know it's hard to admit when you're wrong because, well..." Shannon was looking down at the floor now. "You're not wrong a lot. But I mean, you still accomplished something. Look," she said, gesturing to the light side of the arcade. "Nob's Arkaid hasn't been this packed since I first started coming here. You did a good job, Robot."

"Yes," Robot said with a frown. "But it doesn't matter, anyway."

When Robot had skateboarded downtown that morning, he was secretly hoping they'd pull in crowds maybe half of this size. But even these many people paying respects to the arcade didn't make up for the fact that James wasn't here. What was the point of showing James how profitable the arcade could still be if he wasn't even willing to show up and witness it? Even if they banked enough money to renew James' lease, what hope was there that he was going to, now?

* * *

 _Originally Published October 22nd, 2018_

 _Author's Note for the Story:_

 **In this chapter, the last day for Nob's Arkiad is finally here! But where is James? And what is Shannon doing here?**

So we've finally reached the Arcade Chapter! Yay!

Some of the Rhannon in this chapter and the upcoming one was inspired by fanart by SherbertBerryBear. Specifically this one sherbertber… That deals with RJ and Shannon at the arcade. Which, aside from the opening titles, we never got to see. So thanks, girl, you made some cool stuff for this fandom! Hope you're well.

 _Whatever Happened to Robot Jones?_ © Greg Miller & Cartoon Network


	21. Damage

Once he got talking to Shannon, the rest of the afternoon went by quickly. With little more to manage except the collapsing of the snack tables and the final counting of today's earnings (even though Socks had managed the register, Robot took it upon himself to count the money, since it was an instantaneous process for him, and it relieved his friend to go home early), it was too soon that Robot found himself putting the key in the door and locking it from the outside, one last time.

The automaton was the last one to leave the arcade, with Shannon of all people being the second to last. Cubey and Mitch had left with Socks, and the last remaining customers-a five year old kid with his high school brother, asked to leave over a half hour ago. Robot's friends may have just spent their day making little kids and their parents happy, but the automaton had never seen them look so miserable. Like Robot, they must have realized Nob's was a goner if James hadn't even shown. And they couldn't even enjoy its last day open because they were busy playing adults and running the event. Robot decided he'd have to find a way to make it up to them for all they'd done, but he was too tired to think of what.

Due to the strange relief of having finally started talking to each other again, Shannon couldn't find it in herself to just get up and leave Robot at the arcade alone. Likewise, Robot couldn't find it in himself to let her know that he could manage the shutting down by himself. So, Shannon had made herself useful and swept the floor of popcorn and dirt with an infrequently used broom she found in James' tiny office while Robot went down the final checklist. When the movers came to take the remaining working games for storage, at least they'd have a clean floor to walk across.

Robot was so exhausted that all he could think about while taking care of the last things was getting home and going into dreamless sleep mode. He didn't even care that this would set his sleep routine back three hours too early.

Once the key was turned, however, Robot couldn't step more than a foot away. Closing the doors on the arcade felt like he was closing a chapter of his life, and suddenly, he almost understood why James couldn't bring himself to come.

It was seven thirty, and even colder out now, with the sun having set hours earlier. Even with his systems working overtime to keep his body warm, Robot didn't want to leave. He lingered with the arcade, and thus Shannon lingered with him. It took Shannon quietly commenting on the temperature outside for Robot to snap out of his daze and turn away from the door. He was still a robot, and he had a job to to: Escorting Shannon home, now that dark had fallen.

In the days before things got weird between them-well, weirder, maybe-Shannon would have insisted that she would be fine walking home by herself. But this time, it had been she who had suggested that they walk home together. The suggestion had come up so naturally, like all the anger and frustration they'd had for each other had finally just died, and they were just two random schoolmates again. And Robot had accepted, neither excited nor reluctant. Just fulfilling a simple human request, like a good robot.

They were taking a different route than the one Robot had taken to get to the center of town that morning. As Shannon had explained, it was faster to get to her house if they cut through the park, and the connected cemetery. Robot had no outward objections to this, since he wanted to put this confusing day behind him, but though he'd be lying if he said he wasn't at least a little nervous about taking this unfamiliar route in the dark. He pushed it off as fear for the human, trying to think of himself as manlier than that. It wasn't because he was afraid of zombies rising from the graves, or even ghosts-he'd done all but scream his opinion on the existence of ghosts to the planet. But that didn't mean that being around the humans had allowed him to develop a strange feeling, being so close to so many of the deceased.

But Shannon seemed more concerned with getting home before she could see her breath in puffs of air in front of her face. She seemed remarkably unnerved about a lot of things normal teenagers were bothered by-whether it was bees, random spiders in the classroom, or Robot's own awkward moments, Shannon was only ever annoyed. Not scared-a distinct difference Robot had only ever thought about recently. And now here she was, walking head-first into the wind as she entered the boneyard, having asked Robot to come with her. And he knew darn well based on her body language that it wasn't because she felt safer with him around. It was easy to see that Shannon had taken this route a dozen or more times, probably even came this way walking here today. If the rest of the school was like Shannon, Andy Fields, the ghost of Polyneux, would be rather unpopular, daresay as irrelevant as Mikey Schmitt-and that was tough.

Did _anything_ scare this girl?

Robot and Shannon had started talking again once they got a little further down the cobblestone path. Closer to the park, the trees became denser and the path rose and dipped with small hills, the flora being allowed to grow freely instead of being cleared for graves. The path weaved in between the widest natural spaces of trees, and Robot turned on the backlight behind his eyes to flood the space on the path in front of them.

What they talked about ended up being more simple subjects that had taken far too long to discuss between the two of them. Shannon wanted to know what Robot's life before school was like. Likewise, Robot had never been to an elementary school, and he'd never really asked his friends what the difference was between that, and junior high school.

And Shannon explained that the only real differences between Jagger Elementary and Polyneux Middle School was that at Jagger, everybody wore uniforms-red plaid skirts, like Shannon's, or blue pants, with white polo shirts. And in elementary school, you stayed with one teacher the whole day, as opposed to switching classes every hour.

"Was it difficult?" Robot asked. "Mathematics, I mean."

Shannon shrugged, fists dug deep into her coat pockets. "Not that I remember." She slowed her pace, suddenly looking like she was thinking hard. "In fact... I don't think I was that bad at school back then. I remember my teacher in fourth grade telling my parents she wanted me to skip ahead a grade."

Robot came to a dramatic halt, looking at Shannon in disbelief. "You?! Skip an educational level?"

Shannon held her breath, stopping with him. "Two, actually," she admitted, shyly, her breath coming out as a gray cloud now. "Yeah, uh, they wanted me to start Polyneux early."

The temperature was still dropping and the both of them really needed to get home, but this was too important for Robot to just brush off like it was nothing. "But... " Robot said, his head spinning. "You're... being tutored. You don't even do the extra credit."

Shannon rolled her eyes. "Thanks for reminding me."

"But, what happened?" Robot asked, pleading for a single answer like it would solve half of the world's problems. "What changed between then and now?"

"I don't know, Robot," she said, starting to walk ahead and sounding impatient. "Some things just change, alright? Like the arcade shutting down, and me getting dumber. Some things just happen."

"Humans do not just get dumber, Shannon," Robot told her, carefully articulating every word so that she heard the emphasis. "Some units like Mr. McMcMc live under the impression that they are more intelligent than they really are, but there has never been a single recorded incident of a person gradually becoming less smart-not without a brain injury, anyway."

"Well, you're looking at an incident!" Shannon said, turning around to face him and starting to raise her voice. "So there you go. Can we please just keep moving?"

Robot just stared at her for a moment before sighing, closing his eyes and tilting his face towards the ground. Why did he ever try to get this girl to see things differently? If he didn't know by now that that no human on earth was more stubborn than Shannon Westerburg, he really hadn't learned anything about her at all. And besides, until he got the guts to open up her permanent record, which still sat in his wall at home, he would never know the full context of what she was talking about. For all he knew, she was lying about having almost skipped two grades. But then again, what did she have to gain by lying to him? It wasn't like she was trying to impress _him_ of all people. And after their intimate conversation today, Robot didn't think he'd ever be distant enough from this girl to look at her file now. Unlike Finkman, he still had to look at her face every day, for as long as they went to school together. "Fine," Robot said at last. "I'll drop it."

Shannon just nodded, but her face took on a queer look, and her head whipped behind her. "Did... you hear that?"

Robot looked puzzled, looking to his left and right. He'd been thinking so hard, he'd heard nothing. But Shannon looked positively certain, her face pointed in the direction of the large, old oak tree, about three feet wide, pressing onto the right of the path.

With no stimulant to tell him what he was facing, the automaton's flicked on defense mode, narrowing his eyes and stepping in between Shannon and whatever was behind that tree. Girlfriend or not, he wasn't doing his job right if he didn't protect this human child from whatever man-sized threat seemed the most likely. But then, Shannon just stepped around his outstretched arms, heading for the tree herself.

Robot didn't know where the line was between brave, and stupid, but Shannon was walking the fence right now. Or at least he thought, until his sensitive hearing kicked on, picking up what he'd missed earlier.

A faint, pitiful meow.

Robot's head was so overworked that he couldn't even bring the image of the creature that made it to his head. He ran up to the tree and ran around it's enormous base in the spot behind it, illuminating the ground with his eye's backlight.

Two tiny, miserable green eyes were staring up at them from a metal cage on the frosty grass, squinting in the sudden emergence of light. It was mostly black, making it nearly invisible at night, but anybody old enough to talk could identify the telltale shape of the ears and know what it was.

"It's a kitten!" Shannon said, bending down on the ground. "Where did it come from?"

Robot assumed that Shannon was referring more to the cage than the creature it held, but specifically answering her question, a low growl started up from not too far away, and Robot yanked Shannon back onto her feet and pulled her away before a bigger, meaner looking creature with the same feline ears came into Robot's floodlight.

"From a mother cat," Robot answered, rationally.

The mother cat glared at up at the human and robot that had gotten so close to her baby as she marched back to the cage and sat on the ground, leaning her body against the cage and against the kitten, as if trying to give it body heat.

Robot flicked on his infared vision behind his eyes and saw that while the mother cat was very pink, the kitten nuzzled up against her on the other side of the cage was just barely green. The kitten was significantly smaller, and didn't have a lot of mass with which to hold body heat, which is why, Robot figured, small mammals were known for curling up against their mother. Even human babies, Robot understood, looking at Shannon and expecting her to come to the same conclusion. "The kitten's gotta be freezing," she said.

"What is a trap doing out here?" Robot asked. "They don't belong a public park."

Shannon shivered herself, the cold starting to bite through her thin jacket. "I dunno, some idiot was probably trying to catch something like a raccoon and ended up getting the wrong animal. They have some of these in the alleys behind the businesses out here to catch rats and skunks."

Robot turned off his infared and took a step closer to the cage, trying to get a good look at the silver door on its one side. "Do you suppose there is a number to call when the trap is set off?"

"Forget that!" Shannon said. "By the time anybody's got out here, the cat'll have frozen to death! Or starve." She gestured again to the mother cat, who was flipping over on it's side to give the kitten some milk, but the kitten just kept pressing itself as hard against the metal bars of the case as it could. It was too cold to think about eating. And the mother cat wouldn't forage for scraps as long as her baby was stuck.

"You're right," Robot said, looking her in the eyes. "What we should do is dial animal control and-Shannon, what are you doing?"

" _Shuuush!_ " Shannon said, pressing a finger to her lips. She was inching closer back to the cage, the mother cat glaring at her, but otherwise not taking any action-not willing to deny the kitten her warmth. Exactly what Shannon had been hoping, Robot realized. On tip toe, movements almost as slow as a tortoise, Shannon had gotten within a yard of the cage again before dropping to her knees, and crawling forward on the cold, muddy ground. Robot wanted to speak, to tell her this didn't look like a good idea, but he was too mesmerized by her movements. The gritty concentration on her face-that razor sharp focus he didn't see on dull-minded humans very often. She was very determined about this. Robot almost wondered if she actually knew what she was doing.

But the answer to that question was near immediate. Shannon only had a foot of distance between herself and the cage when she dared to take her hands off of the dirty ground, gingerly reaching them forward in the direction of the cage door. That must have been when the mother cat decided she wasn't going to take any chances, and launched, without warning, on Shannon's arm. But Shannon had been quicker than regular human reflexes should have warranted. By the time the mother cat's claws dug into the sleeve of her jacket, Shannon had the cage by both hands, yanking it forward as she stood up, kitten inside. But she couldn't finish opening the door, and had to drop the cage, because the mother cat was crawling up her arm, furious at the human for interfering. "ROBOT, QUICK!" Shannon shouted. "OPEN THE TRAP!"

Robot felt numb when ran for the cage, prying it open in what felt like slow motion for him-but especially for Shannon. Robot had expected the tiny feline to launch from its tiny prison, but it just sat there. The kitten had been so startled by the first fall that it clung to the back of the cage with wide, untrusting eyes. Knowing better than to shake the cage or something else that would hurt it, Robot held the cage up to his head and thrust his hand inside to pull the kitten out. It was at this point, with the large, metallic claw coming for it that the kitten bounced for the opening, soaring passed Robot's shoulder and out into the air, like a tiny bird without wings.

As cats do, the kitten landed without harm on its four paws, two yards away from where Robot had let it out. The mother cat realized this just after taking a failed swipe at Shannon's face, and ran down Shannon's jacketed arm like a ramp and after her baby, stopping only a fraction of a second to match pace with its shorter-legged kitten before both ran out of the range of Robot's eye's floodlight, and into the darkness.

It had all happened so fast that it took both teenagers a minute to process it. Shannon was exhaling loudly, having just stopped a wild animal from clawing her eyes out. Robot was still standing there, holding the cage, as if something else needed to get out. At least five seconds had gone by before Robot had retracted his arm and let the cage door shut again with a cold 'clank', as if it were angry that it had lost its prisoner.

Hearing Shannon's voice again seemed to normalize time, bringing Robot out of the dream like state he was in. "Well... that could have been much worse."

Robot, who had been half concentrated on the now-empty cage, and Shannon herself, shook his head. "Shannon..."

"What?" Shannon asked, sounding angry. After having successfully gotten the kitten free, she wasn't in the mood to get lectured.

" _Shannon_ ," he said again, more firmly, as he returned to Shannon's side, reached with his empty hand to Shannon's right hand, and turned it over. While the jacket had protected Shannon's arm from the cat's claws, it offered no protection below the wrists. Hence the long scratch marks that were bleeding down to the tips of her fingers.

"Oh..." Shannon said, turning red. "Crap."

* * *

As it turned out, the adrenaline from the incident had prevented the human from even realizing she'd been cut until after Robot had showed her. Thankfully it was just claw cuts, no visible bites on the dermis. No threat of rabies from claw cuts, and Shannon wasn't in any mood to get a rabies shot, at this hour. But there was still a risk of infection-Shannon's skin was seriously cut up. Maybe even needed stitches.

But Shannon didn't feel like telling her mother that she had just released a wild kitten from a trap, and face the wrath of its mother. So, there was only one option, and it didn't make her any happier. She would have to clean and dress it herself. But the problem was that Shannon didn't really know how to properly treat a wound more serious than maybe a paper cut. And her leading hand was the one that had taken the blow, so her left hand would be left shaking and dropping gauze all over the place. And worst of all was the pain she actually got from touching it. She didn't feel anything left alone, but touching it was an entirely different story. She didn't think she could sit still enough to even blot the blood, let alone wrap it.

This was where she needed Robot. Not only did he inform her that he was programmed for basic first aid for humans-most versatile domestic robots were-but specifically that he was going to tattle on her if she did not permit him to work on her hand. He wasn't about to keep a secret like this for a friend, especially if her health was at risk. And at that point, Shannon had had no other choice.

When they had arrived at her house, Robot had reached for they key and opened the door for her, while Shannon kept her torn up hand free of anything that could graze it and cause her pain.

The kids were in luck that they had a warm, empty house with which to do this. Shannon's mother was still at work, and wouldn't be back until late, whereas her grandfather was out with war buddies again. Mrs. Westerburg had agreed to pick up some Saturday shifts in exchange for the extra wages that she could put away for savings. If not for that, they would be doing this operation probably in the woods, where nobody could question them. Even Robot, taking off his jacket when he entered, appreciated the warmth of the waiting home and its gentle night lights, for when Shannon had decided to come home that evening.

Shannon slammed the door shut with her back and locked it with her one good hand. "Let's just get this over with," she breathed.

Upon hearing this, Robot frowned. That sounded exactly like the way she'd spoken to him that first time he had arrived at her house to tutor her. Only back then, he brushed off her annoyance at the thought of trying to learn math, which was difficult for her. Not at the thought that maybe him being in her home annoyed her. He wondered if being here now was just as annoying. After all, he kind of gave her no choice on the matter.

For the treatment of her hand, Robot had already been supplied with some basic, light medical supplies-1 ounce of antibiotic spray, three large band aids, and a strip of gauze only two yards long. All of this packed tightly into a tiny compartment inside Robot's chest cavity, so light it was easy to forget it was even there. But perfect for on-the-spot medical care.

However, seeing that Shannon's cuts bordered on hospital-level severe, and the fact that they at her home made Robot felt comfortable enough to search the upstairs closet for a proper first aid kit. Shannon explained that she vaguely remembered her mother talking about building one in case of emergencies, but she wasn't sure if she ever completed it. However, Robot's search came up negative, only finding spare throw blankets, a hair dryer, and a few box of strange, large, plush adhesive cotton pads that Robot had to think about for a minute before realizing that they were _not_ for first aid.

Robot shut the closet door, blush on his face, deciding the kit probably wasn't in there, if it was ever made yet. He turned his search to the medicine cabinet above the bathroom sink. Jackpot! There, tucked behind cold medicine and aspirin bottles was antibiotic ointment-an entire tube-an entire roll of gauze, and packets of germ-sealed cotton wipes. Robot closed the cabinet and carried his findings downstairs, where Shannon was waiting on the same couch where Robot had tried to teach her basic algebra, two years ago. It should have been painful for Robot, being here after all this time, with Shannon, but it just felt distantly familiar. And even when Shannon lent her hand to him this time, for applying medicine instead of trying to teach her the nines times tables on her fingers, there was no hesitation. Shannon may have preferred to try and do this herself, but she trusted Robot to do it just the same.

Antiseptic, however, caused some problems. Robot had mentioned something about bracing herself, but Shannon wasn't paying terribly close attention, her mind on other things. Not until Robot had moved on from applying the pain ointment to the true, cutting antiseptic he kept stored in a tiny vile in his chest. He dumped some onto a cleaning cloth, and from the minute it touched her skin, she felt something very cold trickle from the cotton to her skin. And that coolness quickly turned to fire, sending her reeling back against her arm of the couch, shouting in pain.

Now, the arguing started. "I told you it was going to hurt!" Robot said.

"Yeah!" Shannon shouted back, "But you didn't tell me you were going to just slam it against my hand like that!"

"What are you talking about? I barely touched you!" Robot defended himself. "But you weren't paying attention!"

"Maybe you're not using the right stuff." Shannon told him, holding her shredded hand in the other, now in constant pain. "I didn't ask for any antiseptic!"

Robot was too tired to carry on defending himself in a meager and kind and sweet disposition, like he always did when humans treated him like an idiot. "I know what I am doing, Shannon," he said, his voice as deep and factual as he could make it.

"Oh, right," Shannon said sarcastically, "Like you know how to save the arcade, right? You're just _programmed_ to know how to make everything better? You have to always have the answers-you have to always be right. Mister Never-Wrong. But you're not! You're just as clueless as the rest of us!"

Robot's emotional gauge was maxing out, in particular the one that monitored his anger was pressing the needle all the way flat against the red zone. The kind he hadn't felt since last speaking with Grampz about the Gala, and the JNZ/Lightoller merger. The kind that made him want to burn holes into her face. "I may not have all the answers, but I have the kind of answers that say not to go launching myself at a wild animal! Zombies, Shannon, that may have been the stupidest thing I've ever seen someone do!" he said earnestly. "Robot or human. I mean, _what_ were you thinking?"

"It worked, though," Shannon said, her voice dropping a little. She was just starting to sound like a child, shown that their logic made no sense, but pressing the argument anyway, refusing to admit that they're wrong.

"Affirmative," Robot told her. "But look at you!" He gestured again to her injured hand. "Gosh, Shannon, you can be so bullheaded sometimes! I really have to wonder if you were ever advanced enough to skip two grades, when heaven only knows what you did to lose your leg!"

The world, as the young automaton knew it, came to a screeching, unforgiving halt.

The words had flown out of his mouth like that caged kitten, soaring without grace, without wings, just needing out. After all this time, Robot had finally had broached the unforgivable topic always sitting in the back of his mind.

Shannon's eyes popped so wide, Robot almost thought they were going to pop right out of her skull. She had been glaring at the carpet while Robot had lectured her, but upon hearing that last remark, her chin tilted back up, slack jawed face in pure disbelief.

There was just silence now. Not even cars passing or crickets outside-they'd retired for the season. Words were beginning to swarm in Robot's head like a swam of bees, non-distinguishable and deaf to his understanding, but dizzying all the same. Only one word kept bobbing up. The only one he trusted right now. "Shannon... Shannon... oh," he said, trying to get a hold of his brain and tell it to calm down. "I'm so sorry-I-I-I don't k-know where that came from, I was, it's just-"

"Stop," Shannon spoke at last. She was holding up her injured hand, which began to weep blood a little again. The antiseptic had helped a little, but it still needed to be wrapped.

He waited for total silence to fall again before speaking. "Shannon, please, do not hold that remark against my people," Robot said, standing up from the couch. "I-I can understand if you never want to see me again, but don't think that all robots really believe all human injuries are a result of their own stupidi-I MEAN-miscalcuation."

"I said, 'shut up'!" Shannon shouted at him. "Listen to me!"

Robot slowly sat back down on the couch, afraid to disobey her. "I am listening," he said.

Shannon sighed, breaking gaze from him to look, not at her hand, but at her metal kneecap. Like a dozen times that day, the entire prosthetic limb ached a little, even though it shouldn't have, since all the nerve endings were long gone, and even the skin around the amputation had healed years ago. Right now, its throbbing particularly bad may have something to do with the fact that now she was thinking about how it happened, and worst of all, having to explain it. Brain connections were weird. "The thing is," she began, "the... accident... what happened to me," she told him, carefully looking away from the leg to Robot, as if looking away from it, not forcing her brain to remember that it was just metal now, made the pain worse. " _Was_ my fault." She swallowed a mouthful of saliva. "It _was_ because of something stupid I did. I screwed up really, really bad, once."

Robot's eyes wobbled. He could hardly believe she was telling him this. Could hardly believe this had started off as an argument over Shannon's bull headed thinking. "You did?" he asked softly.

"Yeah," Shannon replied, resting her injured arm on the side of the couch, hand carefully angled off the fabric.

Robot waited for her to go on, but it was apparent she wasn't about to offer anymore so easily. Well... he was already in deep for bringing up the unspeakable. What would it hurt to pry a little more? "What happened?"

She looked at him with surprise. "H-how it happened?"

"Yes."

The fingers on Shannon's injured hand began twitching. She was still in pain, but by this point, the most severe was in her leg. The burning of her hand was almost numb in comparison, but she didn't plan on explaining to Robot that just thinking about talking about the story gave her physical pain as well as memory related. "I don't know if I-"

"Shannon," Robot interrupted, "I don't understand how you could overcome so much, and still be afraid of a story."

That did it. "I'm not afraid!" Shannon shouted defensively. "I was _there_!"

Robot nodded. And then Shannon realized what Robot had done. He'd made her hot temper work against her. Damn. He did know her well by now. "Alright... I'll explain."

Robot dared to break the careful perimeter of personal space he put between himself and all humans, and inched closer to her, as if it would allow him to hear better.

Shannon bit her lip and waited for the story to come. But Shannon had never explained any part of the story to anybody else who'd never heard it before, and here she was, about ready to tell all to Robot Jones, the last person on earth she wanted to know.

Whatever story she went with, it could never include Benji. "You see... um... I used to ride a bike, you know, like most of the other kids do."

Robot nodded. He himself didn't own a bike, his skateboard being all he needed if he was in a hurry. Bikes were cumbersome for robots, especially those with limited range of motion. "But, you don't anymore," Robot said carefully.

"Right," Shannon said. "Well, that's because that's kind of how it happened."

Robot blinked, eyes widening a little more. After having spent most of sixth and seventh grade intensely studying this girl, he couldn't believe that a detail so simple, so seemingly irrelevant as never seeing her ride a bike, could have been a clue to one of the most massive details of her life. "Oh." was all he said.

Shannon was already saying far more than she meant to. There was no stopping now. She gave herself just long enough pauses for her brain to create details. "It was like a normal day. I was riding my bike into town," she paused. "To get candy, I think." She paused again, looking up at Robot, tapping the wire to her braces. "Before this, I mean. And, I _was_ kind of bullheaded, even back then. I followed the cross-lights and everything, I mean, I wasn't a total idiot. But sometimes I guess I forgot to check and see if someone was turning before I went ahead and crossed. Y-you know that intersection before the liquor store and-what's there-the J-mart?"

Robot looked as if he took in a sharp breath-which made no sense, because robots didn't breathe. But gosh, was he expressive. "It happened there?"

"Yes..." Shannon said, carefully. "There was... a big car-no a truck. And it was making a turn when I was getting ready to cross. Only I guess I forgot to look."

"But how do you miss a truck?" Robot asked.

Shannon just sighed again. "I told you. I was careless. Well, that semi just kept going and when it couldn't stop, it chewed my bike, and well... part of me, as well."

"But..." Robot started. "It was alright. I mean, they put you back together," he tried to smile, gesturing to her prosthetic. "They made you better, even."

Shannon met Robot's gaze now, her eyes glossy. "Robot, it's not the same," she explained, calmly. "When a robot gets damaged, they can just build you all over again. But with a human, it's more complicated. There's nerve endings, and blood, and-aagh!" She groaned, another ghost pain stabbing right where her stump ended, this one particularly bad. Both hands, including the one that was still burning, instinctively few to her thigh right beneath the bottom of her skirt, trying to soothe it. Shannon thought that the ghost pains were finally starting to go away these past few months. Why were they suddenly worse than ever?

" _What_ is going on?" Robot asked, looking from her hands back up to her face. Once or twice before, he'd noticed Shannon would touch the area where her prosthetic and her real thigh were attached, but he thought she was just making sure the prosthetic was secure, or that she was even reminding herself how great it was that she was different. But the metal leg seemed to be causing her pain.

"It hurts, stupid!" She yelled at him. As fast as it had come, the pain in her leg was fizzing out. Although her cut up hand was still throbbing from contact with the fabric of her skirt, she immediately felt guilty for lashing out at him, her hands finally pulling away. "Sorry... it's not... I don't mean to do that. It's just that these pains suddenly got worse."

"The metal leg... it _hurts_ you?" Now it was Robot's turn to recoil to his side of the couch, looking horrified as he realized that all this time, that accessory he thought was so admirable was actually a source of pain for her.

"It's not really the prosthetic, it's the amputation," Shannon explained. "They told me-it goes something like my body doesn't really know that the leg is gone, and that I'm all healed now. Part of my brain doesn't understand that the nerve endings in my leg are all dead and gone, it still thinks there's something wrong with me."

Robot could only slowly shake his head. She might as well have been trying to explain to him that she was an alien, and her braces were really antennae. "But that's illogical. It-it doesn't make sense."

"I know it doesn't, but that's... me." She sighed, shrugging. "It's just the way it is."

"How do you stop it?" Robot asked. "The hurting?"

"I can't stop it."

"No!" Robot shouted, dissatisfied with the answer. A girl assisted by metal couldn't just be left to hurt! "Surely there must be a pill, or an operation-"

"Robot, don't you understand? It's in my head, there is nothing I can do about it. I'm broken!"

The word hung in the air, cutting off every possible response the automaton could have made. Out of nowhere, Robot's mental dictionary popped to the forefront of his vision, trying to assist him with how to process this information. It did so, by defining 'broken.'  
 _  
To break: To inflict physical harm caused to something to make it less valuable, less useful, or unable to perform its normal function. See: Damage._

Never in a million years had he considered Shannon's condition to be a form of damage. And yet... what else was it? Robot thought of that three wheeled teenage automaton who was with that group that had confronted him after the Gala. He had to be carted around by his friends in order to move.

 _That_ was what Robot considered a damage. Not this. Not a girl who could still walk around, who could still run faster than most humans he'd ever seen down a flight of stairs, trying to get her bus. Try as he might, Robot couldn't wrap his head around a disability like the kind Shannon was describing-a mental extension of her physical injury. Not when she seemed so...

Normal.

There had been a time, maybe the first few months that Robot had set his sights on her, that he seriously considered the thought Shannon's metal leg and braces together could have a sign of her superiority among the hundreds of teenagers of Polyneux Middle School. It made her unique, that was indisputable. And it caught his attention all right. But as his process of integration with the humans began, the moments of superiority he felt among his peers slowly stopped coming, and instead were replaced with more moments were Robot felt _inferior,_ or foolish at the very least. It was so gradual that he hadn't really noticed this change about himself until having spoken with Grampz the night of the Gala, and feeling the crushing weight of defeat as Grampz resolved to do nothing about the merger, and whatever negative impact it would have on the robots.

Robot shook his head, tears forming in the back of his eyes. It felt like one of the last slivers of his innocence was being crushed by this flash of reality. He couldn't deal with it. Not after losing Nob's today. He couldn't make himself suddenly adult enough to know how to react to his. He didn't want to see the world the way the humans did: The world where Shannon wasn't really normal.

"I simply cannot understand this," came his voice, cracked, which was very rare for him, but very new, too. It was a string of words he hated to use, only when something a human was trying to relay was truly out of his comprehension. "How can someone repaired with metal still... be broken?"

Shannon shrugged. Between her aching thigh and searing hand, she looked more exhausted than Robot felt, and that was saying a lot. "It's not a repair. It's a replacement for what can't be."

Robot and Shannon sat in silence for what felt like an eternity before Robot slid closer to Shannon's side, and Shannon slowly outstretched her bloodied hand back to him. He finished his work on her hand in silence, not even meeting her gaze. She was just another foolish human he was helping out, as robots had to do. When he reapplied the antiseptic, she did flinch, but she was better prepared for it, and Robot was able to keep a hold on her arm this time. His movements were slow, cautious, but well calculated. Her's were involuntary twitches at pain, and jerks, even though she was trying so hard to remain still. Had she gone to a hospital, Robot realized, she might have been given her a shot of pain killer, but as they were doing right now, she'd have to put up with the pain. She had ghost pains, so she was sort of used to it. And as Robot got closer to completion, she relaxed.

He may not have had a medical license, but Robot Jones did not do shotty work. Shannon's hand look professionally treated, her pain even subsiding now, after the re-application of pain ointment finally seemed to be working. Shannon even remarked about Robot's good work on her now-bandaged hand as he went for the door. His tank rumbled, and it occurred to Robot that he hadn't had anything to eat in over ten hours, and neither had Shannon. If she was hungry, she didn't say anything about it. Then again, her and Robot consumed two different kinds of fuel. Another reminder that they were just too different.

* * *

It wasn't until well after 12 hours since he left the house that morning that Robot finally stumbled up to his own doorstep. But with everything he'd just learned, his mind was buzzing. For some reason he considered logging about today, and he opening up his mental Data Entry book, but immediately closed it before moving the blinking mouse one letter to the right. He needed a rested mind to properly process all that he learned today.

Even though they were fortunate that Shannon's mother was out until late, he wasn't so lucky about his own parents, neither of which worked that day. His mother in particular had a way of letting him know right off the bat that she wasn't happy.

" _Robot Electro Jones!_ " she shouted from the next room. "Where have you been? It's an hour to midnight!"

The young automaton groaned, the door slamming cold from the ceiling to the floor as soon as he crossed the threshold, as if it, too, was mad at Robot for being out for so long. He had a feeling that he was going to be chewed out, he just didn't have the energy to face it. "I can explain everything, Mom unit," he said, coming into the living room.

The television was on, muted, and a fat woman in a too-tight dress was giving the report of the weather for Sunday and the upcoming week-ice cold, straight through the 31st. Between her plastic-happy voice and his mother and father, two laser-toting robots who were staring him down, Robot wished he could jump into the television and away from whatever was going to go down here.

"You had better supply an explanation," his mother replied, rolling over to look over him, as if she almost didn't believe he was finally home. "Because your father and I were a few minutes away from calling the police."

"Wha-really?" Robot asked, his eyes widening. His mom and dad already knew about what he had to do at Nob's that day, and he'd been expecting a lecture from his mother about being out longer than he'd promised, but for his mother to actually think to dial the authorities and report him missing? That was... awfully human of her. Robot looked down at his jacket and wondered if his own extended time with the humans had rubbed off on his parents. "Listen, I wasn't goofing off. I was following protocol-escorting a human to her home and then tending to an injury. You should have seen the size of the gashes in her-"

"Wait," Robot's father suddenly interrupted. During Robot's talk, Mr. Jones had shifted his angry eyes towards that appliance the humans called the 'idiot box', pointing dramatically. "Television!"

Robot and his mother both gave each other confused looks before moving their gaze to the silent screen. Normally, Mrs. Jones would scold her husband for interrupting Robot's reprimanding for something as insignificant as television, but she didn't dare say anything, because the face that was flashing on the screen was that of her son.

"It's me!" Robot shouted. "Turn it on!"

On his order, Mr. Jones zoomed up to the TV and flicked the volume knob. The sound echoed back into the metallic room in an almost deafening. But as soon as Robot saw his own face on the TV, it had cut to a commercial. The three robots sat in awed silence throughout the commercials for dish soap and all-beef fast food restaurant patties. Finally, the leading news anchor's face appeared on the screen again, his wise middle-aged smile front and center for all nighttime viewers to be comforted by.

"And this week on our 'Can Kids Change the World?' segment, WBM2 News has come across an effort to preserve a beloved local entertainment venue from its untimely demise. Reporter Rebecca White has the story."

The male anchor's face was cut to a zoomed in photograph of Nob's Arkaid's entrance sign. "Good evening, Todd. This morning I came to you live from Center and Diversity where an event was taking place to raise funds for one of the towns most famous after school hangouts for middle schoolers. The 23rd was the first day the arcade went without operation in over three years. But today, between 7am and 7pm, Nob's Arkaid opened its doors to the public once more after being closed for a solid week."

The screen cut from Becky White's satisfied smile to that of an unflattering still frame of video of Robot Jones, looking not unlike the photograph of Dr. Harris Jones, sitting in the hallway of JNZ Robotics-total deer in the headlights. "The event was being run by none other than one of its own young patrons-8th grader Robot Jones. A surprising feat of organization for someone who is both a middle schooler, and a robot."

"Robot Jones!" his mother exclaimed, exchanging glances with Robot's father. "You didn't inform us that you were going to be on the news broadcast!"

"I... guess I forgot," Robot explained, looking dumbfounded now in his own living room. He was being honest. Other things like the arcade's unstoppable end and Shannon having finally spilled the truth about her accident took far more precedent in his thoughts than some smug reporter getting her income on his story.

"Even more fascinating," Becky reported, reading off of the tele-prompter, "is that the building that Nob's Arkaid had used to house its over fifty gaming consoles has a rich history."

The screen flipped again to a sepia toned photograph of a very different looking building that looked like it was in a very familiar spot. This building, where Nob's should have been, was very large-much too large, and the buildings on each side were different as well. The walls of not-Nob's were covered in windows that would have ruined the digital-screen-based arcade experience, and missing its trademark outer artwork, instead being a plain brick brown color. To top it off, Nob's Arkaid's massive sign at the top was gone, and in its place on the front of the building was a fancy cursive font bore the name _Rocky's._

"Established in 1963 as "Rocky's Club of Fun, this same building was once home to the town's most popular after school hang out for senior high schoolers, hosing a small diner, a candy store, an indoor pool, and a variety of wholesome games at affordable prices-all that was required to play most games was a single nickle. The business saw success all the way up to 1971, when business owner Pop Newhart," the reporter said, as a photograph of a fat man with balding black hair and a grin flashed on screen, "Was forced to sell part of his property on either side of the street to the city council to allow elbow room for more businesses, and subsequently more traffic for the city. This decision meant that Rocky's had to be completely demolished, and rebuilt into a building only a third of it's original size. Many teens were deeply unhappy with the changes made to Rocky's due to the new limited size, including the deconstruction of the pool. Nearly as soon as Rocky's was reopened, it was closed down again for lack of business, and sold back to the city. The stripped building than sat as an abandoned, simple white block in the middle of Center for about three years until a man by the the name of Joseph Hamilton leased the property. Joseph had seen the rise of electronic games, AKA, video games, in arcades across the United States, and decided to outfit the new teen hangout with only electronic games. The newly named Nob's Arkaid," she said, as the footage of the Arkaid from only this morning appeared on screen, "has had success over the past twelve years, but a drastically declining turnout this year has caused the current and third manager overall, James Saitō, to decide to terminate his lease and close Nob's Arkaid, bringing a symbolic end to yet another generation's escape from the real world."

The TV then cut back to Becky White as she rattled on. "Robot Jones' noteworthy actions come at quite a coincidental time, given the controversy over the recent merger between East Coasts technical corporations JNZ Robotics and Lightoller Cybornetics-a corporate decision that has Anti-Trust activists up in arms."

"Wait a second!" Robot said, cutting through more of the reporter's rattling and turning to his father. "I didn't know JNZ was getting outside criticism for the merger!"

Mr. Jones was flexing his hand and looking nervously from his wife to his son. Mrs. Jones, as she did often, took up the explaining for him. "We did not want you to worry, but some newspapers have written up some very negative articles concerning the merger."

"Like... what?" Robot asked. Worker's rights was the core issue at hand concerning the merger, at least for anybody who didn't agree with it on the JNZ side-particularly the rights of its robotic workers, and he knew the newspapers couldn't possibly care about that, unless the articles were being written up by robots themselves.

"Well," Mrs. Jones started, "Many business investigators think both JNZ and Lightoller are large enough to consider the merger illegal, and they are proposing not only to break up the merger before the conditions for both sides are finalized, but if they don't break up before the courts step in and recognize it as a trust, that both sides should pay for having agreed to knowingly break the law."

"Pay... how?" Robot asked. He knew he should be afraid of the answer, but he couldn't resist asking anyway.

"By compartmentalizing," Mr. Jones said, finally speaking up. "They wish to break up the separate companies, and terminate staff as a result."

Robot gulped. Terminating staff in a robotics company did not mean the same thing as terminating staff in a regular company. Especially when a large percentage of the actual staff were robots. Robots who were laid off from a company couldn't be promised things like worker's comp-if they were even laid off, that is. Termination could prove to be a very literal word.

"Now don't worry, Robot," Mrs. Jones told him. "Our family is not in jeopardy. As a supervisor, your father's job is not at risk, even if they did carry out layoffs. That said, my best estimation is that the merger is not going to stop based on press threats, so carry on as I said: Do not associate yourself with the Lightoller units, but don't carry out arguments with them either."

Robot nodded. He hadn't told his mother about his acquaintanceship with the Crystal unit yet, and he didn't plan on it. His mom was too no-nonsense sometimes, and she wouldn't understand why he felt like he needed to. Crystal knew about Lightoller Cybornetics better than any unit at JNZ, and working together, they might just figure out why the merger was happening-at least, what was in it for Claymore. (Crowe's motivation was obviously money, or at least there didn't seem to need to be another reason.)

And besides that, Robot found something comforting in finally having a friend who was also another robot. For once in his life, he had someone to talk to who understood what it was like to be a machine, and didn't despise him for the fact that his only other real friends in the world were human. Of course, Crystal didn't seem to have too many friends of her own, so it didn't behoove her to be picky. It was very illogical, for an android so attractive and appealing to have no friends. At least if Finkman was example number one, Crystal should have been flocked by admirers just because she was beautiful. But robots either hated her outright-mostly the shebots, or muttered very rude, very ungentlemanly things about they way they could abuse her their breath-mostly the males. Neither of which tried to talk to her directly, at least from what Robot had saw. They didn't care about getting to know her.

It reminded Robot so much of the way humans treated him when he first arrived at Polyneux, either avoiding him or talking about how to use his robotic abilities to their personal advantage. But unlike himself, he didn't think that time was going to make Crystal more accepted. And Crystal had nobody else to go to when the day ended. Even her creator was a monster, hardly a mother, let alone a good one. This made him so compelled to befriend her, despite the little warning in the back of his head telling him not to trust her, simply for being the product of the enemy company.

But surely, she had to have gotten over her own bias in order to befriend him. And she was the odd bot out. She was trapped in the strange place. It had to have been hard to trust anybody, especially with her lack of a welcome. Why _couldn't_ he trust her?

"In total, an estimated seven hundred people paid a visit to Nob's Arkaid today," Becky went on, "to either play some games, or to pay tribute to its past. It would appear the event was nearly a success, but when we tried to contact Mr. Saitō for comment, he could not be reached. It would seem as though Nob's Arkiad is just another in a line of youth entertainment venues that is ready for the record books, but the adorable actions of this young Robot today go to remind us that even children refuse to give in, even at the bleakest of times. Back to you, Todd!"

"Thank you, Becky," the male reporter said as the screen cut to him again. He shuffled the papers on his desk and turned to the other news anchor sitting on his right. "That truly was cute," Todd said quietly to the female anchor.

"Truly, it's a shame," the tanned brunette anchor said. "But not everything can last forever." She turned to the camera. "Well, WBM2 News will be back at 5am. Until next time, this is Selma Orson and Todd Richards signing off."

"Goodnight everybody," Todd said, as both anchors did a little wave to the camera. The screen then cut to a commercial for a law firm that promised checks 'for those in wrecks.'

Robot practically forgot he wasn't sitting and feel backwards.

Cute.

They thought it was _cute!_ All of his hard work, all of his hopes, his dreams. Cute. Like a dream a five year old would have. Cute, like that kitten that had launched out of the cage. Cute, like none of it really mattered, it was all for show.

He could almost stand that James hadn't shown up, ruining the point of the event in the first place. But to have these smug, know-it-all humans write off his efforts as childish at best? After he'd had the most adult like responsibility he'd ever had in his life?

The worst of all was that it was mentioned in a segment not called 'Kids Can Change the World' but ' _Can_ Children Change the World?' As if kids actually accomplishing something was unheard of, and they only liked to pretend kids could do great things because it made for endearing stories, like seven year olds running a Lemonade stand for charity. It made all of Robot's spent time and energy feel completely useless. It was wrong! It was _so_ wrong!

"Wow," Mrs. Jones remarked. "You surely made an impression on those humans, Robot Jones."

Robot balled up his fists. He could shout, he could scream, but what would it do him. He let his frustration sizzle out of him in the form of steam behind his eyes and out of his vents, his arms shaking before finally, resting. "Yes," he answered, coldly. "But not the right kind."

Almost at once, the phone began to ring. Mrs. Jones went for it, telling her son that it was Socks calling to tell Robot that he had been on the news again. Robot groaned and told his mother to tell Socks that he knew already, and that he was going to sleep. But as soon as Mrs. Jones hung up the phone, it began to ring again. Six rings and a minute of silence later, it started up again. And then again. It wasn't just Robot's friends calling. It had to be randoms from school. Kids who wanted to talk to him just because he was that kid from the arcade, or that kid who was up for Valedictorian against Clara Doppler.

One thing was for sure now. After two and a half years of school, Robot was finally popular.

And he didn't give a lick.

On the fourth set of rings, Robot turned midway from the escalator and ran to the phone, unhooking it from the wall and dislodging the cord from the back, slamming the cordless phone down on a nearby table and returning to the escalator, his dumbfounded parents watching on in confusion. Two years ago, Robot had been ecstatic to get a telephone call at home-it was a sign that he had friends at last. Maybe even a perspective girlfriend. But right now, he didn't care if Dr. Jones himself was calling. He needed sleep before he could deal with anything else.

* * *

 _Originally Published October 22nd, 2018_

 _Author's Note for the Story:_

 **In this chapter, Robot learns that the factory may face consequences to the merger with Lightoller, that may affect robots themselves. And a very reluctant Shannon finally opens up to Robot about the number of things, including the biggest mystery of all: How she became an amputee.  
**

 **Note! This chapter's been edited after I got some constructive criticism on the way Robot would process Shannon's story. Let met me know what you think.**

 _Whatever Happened to Robot Jones?_ © Greg Miller & Cartoon Network


	22. Tenant of Apartment 3

By the time Robot pushed himself upwards on the couch-bed on Halloween morning, he could hear the clanks and bangs and various mechanical noises that meant that parents were already awake downstairs. His tank was empty again, and burning in protest for Robot's lack of consumption of fuel. He sat there, feet danging from the end, knowing what a long night he had ahead of himself, and almost wishing it were Monday.

Of course, he wouldn't have been able to sleep in as late if this were Monday instead of Sunday. When he actually got around to flipping his digital clock on in front of his eyes, it was eleven thirty am. He was used to waking up around 8 or 9 on a Sunday, usually because his father had some sort of household chores for him, or wanted him to come to the factory with him. Today though, both parents were home, and by some tiny miracle, Robot had been allowed to sleep in.

He certainly wasn't feeling the sleep. The more and more time he spent with the humans, the less effective his nightly charge felt. Then again, it might have something to do with the irregular hours. Or was it at all possible that teenage drowsiness was contagious?

When he couldn't stand the odd loneliness of his room anymore, Robot's feet finally found the floor, and he took the lazy non-hopping ride down on the escalator to the kitchen. There, he tiredly greeted his busy-as-usual mother and fixed himself an emergency energy-packed canister of gasoline and two shots of espresso blended together. If this didn't wake him up, nothing would.

As his drink heated to a satisfying temperature, he went into the living room to reconnect the phone to the cord in the wall. His mother had explained that she and Mr. Jones had left the phone unplugged through the night and morning to let Robot sleep, but that Mr. Jones wasn't happy about it-having been waiting for a mildly important call from the factory that morning.

Robot promised to check all their messages and let his mother know if Dad unit had gotten his call. But when the teenage robot checked the furiously blinking but silenced answering machine, the cassette tape inside had been completely used up. Several minutes of boredly fast-forwarding through the many messages, Robot learned that the tape had maxed out at a gut-kicking fifty seven messages, the first ones having been recorded earlier yesterday after Robot's first appearance on the live morning news. A more advanced device hooked up into the answering machine told Robot that at least forty more calls had been made after the answering machine had stopped recording. Robot's tank burned. He knew nobody at Polyneux who cared about Nob's would have called-they would have shown up to the event, if they did. And to Robot's credit, there had been a handful of familiar faces towards the end of the day yesterday. But still, a handful and the entire rest of the student body were fairly disproportionate. Which meant only one thing: Like the prior fifty seven messages, aside from Robot's friends, everybody was calling to make fun of him.

So much for popularity. Oh, he was famous alright, but not for the right reasons.

How had so many people gotten his house telephone number, anyway?

He had one theory. One of the particularly least subtle messages was a baby-talk voice of a suspiciously familiar hissing voice calling him 'baby bot', with a similarly hissing-cackle in the background. These two callers did an awful job at trying to cover up their distingusihable voices, and they also called the most frequently-a total of five times, at least before the cassette was full.

Robot wondered where the Yogman Twins of all people had acquired his phone number from in the first place. Then he remembered how easy it was to get into students files when he had distracted Ms. Wilson. And suddenly Robot was annoyed that he obviously wasn't the only one to think of doing that.

Robot erased all the messages, safe for the ones his friends left, and a minute hadn't gone by after he had plugged the phone back in before it rang again. Robot groaned and let it ring, somehow knowing it wasn't for Dad unit. But he was surprised when Mitch was the one calling. "Dude! Seven hundred people at the Arkaid last night!"

Robot rolled his eyes, wondering if proper phone greetings were unfashionable or something. "Good morning to you, too, Mitch. And I did watch the news last night."

"You didn't hear from James, did you?" asked Mitch, not seeming to be bothered about Robot not answering the phone last night. "He's still MIA and nobody can reach him."

"Actually, uh," Robot started, "I sort of turned my phone off last night. If he'd tried to call me, I wouldn't know. My, uh, messages machine maxed out."

Robot proceed to briefly explain how after his second appearance on the news, the phone practically feel off the hook with calls. Not of all of them congratulatory. In fact, most of them were rather condescending. He then proceeded to explain his theory about how so many kids got Robot's telephone number.

"Yeesh, sorry RJ," Mitch said. "Lenny's probably still mad that you got nominated for one of the Valedictorian slots and he didn't."

Maybe it was his drowsy mind drifting away to the hot oil waiting for him in the kitchen, but a strange question popped into Robot's mind. "Lenny? You mean Denny and Lenny, correct?"

Mitch paused, then made a sound like a verbal shrug. "Yeah, maybe."

In Robot's head, there were two options: Let this thought drop, or press on. Robot decided his oil could cool for a moment. "What do you mean?"

The automaton heard his friend sigh in the background. "It's probably nothing, just my imagination."

"No, Mitch, tell me!" Robot said. "It is concerning my privacy, after all."

"Well," Mitch started, "I just got this weird feeling like one of the Yogman's doesn't have nearly as much of a grudge against you as the other."

"You mean Lenny?" Robot said. "The one who broke the beaker in homeroom the morning we found out who was nominated?"

"Yeah, that," Mitch said, sounding not totally convinced-only curious enough in his observation to bring it up with Robot. "When that happened, I turned around in my seat, and it looked like Denny was... I don't know... not that mad as Lenny. And then when your name got announced, I didn't want to look weird, but I peeked behind me again-to see if the Yogmans were going to do something about it. And Lenny was whispering something in Denny's ear."

Robot 'humped'. "Well, that doesn't mean anything. He was probably already calculating a reaction for that unfortunate news and telling Denny about it. From what I have observed over the past two years, Lenny is the leading of the two heads. "

"No argument there," Mitch agreed, "But what if the following head didn't think the same way?"

Robot paused. The Yogmans were the last people he thought deserving of his mental energy, especially with how stretched thin it was these days, but Mitch raised an intriguing hypothesis. Admittedly, Robot found it difficult to think of 'the Yogmans twins' as anything but a singular minded entity, like a two headed dragon-two headed things were always some sort of abomination of nature, after all, (except maybe that two headed duckling Robot once read about in an article on cloning. That was cute.) But like Davvy and Phillips-the teenage robots that Robot had rarely if never saw apart, but were always taking jabs at each other-Lenny and Denny Yogman were, mind and body, two separate individuals. They didn't even come from the same egg-being fraternal twin brothers. This was obvious just by looking at their height and facial differences. Robot shivered at the thought of what the Yogman Twins would have been like if Denny was identical to Lenny. Surely they'd act more alike, along with look it. And Robot wondered if their attempts to get a hold of his brain for their own robot and reprogram his body as some sort of unthinking robot slave would have actually worked, if the two boys were always on the same page.

Come to think of it, one of the reasons their plans always seemed to fall through was the fumbling caused by their differences. On Robot's second day of school, the Yogmans had nearly successfully defeated Robot's brainless body using their mega-bot and Robot's own brain to power it. Yet as soon as Mitch and Cubey got a hold of Robot's body, they were able to program it to fight the Yogbot off. And during most of the fight, Robot's recorded memory recalled Lenny and Denny arguing about tactical maneuvers-of course, what had all happened hardly made a lick of sense until Robot had had his brain put back in. Technically, it was like reconnecting a severed cord. But it had felt like pulling the haze up from Robot's mind so he could see the world clearly again.

No matter the situation, it seemed like Lenny took the role as the planner, and Denny the executioner. And just maybe it was Lenny's reluctance to act on the 'executing' aspect of a plan that caused the divide between the twins more than anything else. After all, it was Denny who operated the Yogbot. And it was Denny who operated the Yogstrosity as well. And it was also Denny, if memory served, who had won the Wonder Cube challenge, while smug Lenny's face was front and center on television that night at the Wonder Cube regional finals.

Robot had never given any of this much thought, only ever really thinking of the Yogmans as one enemy, not two. But robots came in all shapes, sizes, and model numbers, despite being made by the same company. Likewise, the Yogman Twins were two individual units who worked together, and dressed the same-despite not even being identical twins, and also being well over the age where this was considered socially approved-but when did the Yogmans give a hoot about social approval?

So while Robot was somehow very doubtful of Mitch's implication that Denny didn't hate him as much as his brother, he could chew on the question of why Denny continued to listen to Lenny, when Lenny repeatedly belittled him. Was it because Lenny was older, even though it was only by four minutes?-if he recalled correctly someone in the hallway muttering about the situation. Was it because Lenny was taller? Although for as scrawny as he was, he was hardly intimidating physically.

Robot found that he had had to deal with the Yogmans less and less these days. In fact, these harassing phone calls were the first time they'd done anything to him at all this school year. And it was coming from such a personal and petty place-giving out Robot's phone number? Sure, that was annoying, but what did they gain from this? Except satisfaction at Robot's annoyance. They were sure stepping down their game this time around. Unless, this was just a warning for whatever Lenny had in mind.

"Robot? You still there, man?"

Robot shook the train of thought off its rails. "Huh? Oh, yeah. You know, Mitch, I believe you might be onto something. But I'll need more evidence to prove this hypothesis."

"Yeah," Mitch said, probably thinking Robot's extended silence was some sort of process of robotic thinking. "Anyway, I'm getting kind of worried about James. This morning I got a call from the guys who got paid ahead of time for moving all the arcade games off the property to some storage locker. The door was open, but nobody was there."

Robot blinked, almost not believing what he was hearing. "He didn't even show up for the move?"

"Did you, uh, lock the door last night?"

"I'm positive that I did!" Robot exclaimed. This was so eerie. Something was definitely wrong. He knew for a fact that he locked that door-he had a video recording in his mind of him putting the key in the lock and turning it. He even pushed it thereafter to make sure. There was only one possible explanation: Someone had come back and unlocked the door, but didn't stay to help the moving crew. "Mitch... I'm worried now, too."

"I'm gonna get Cubey on the line in a second," I was thinking before we get the ball rolling for tonight's plan, we go and check on him. You know, to make sure he's not dead or something."

Robot wanted to roll his eyes at the thought of needless worry over a man that they barely cared about, but in that moment, the idea seemed to real to brush off.

"How do you know where he lives?" the automaton asked. For as much as he frequented Nob's Arkaid in the past two years, he couldn't say that he knew much about it's current owner and operator. In fact, last night's news report was the first time Robot had even heard James' last name. Even his roster had never bothered to catalog it.

"Eh, it wasn't that hard to figure out," Mitch explained. "He's got an apartment near the edge of town. I got the address from Nob's office."

"Alright," Robot said with a sigh, realizing his long night ahead of him had been extended to start this morning. "Meet you at the bus stop?"

"Be there in fifteen," Mitch said before abruptly hanging up. Apparently, "goodbye"s were also unfashionable now, too.

Robot met Mitch and Cubey at the agreed upon place-the school bus stop, which sometimes functioned as their go to meet up spot. From there, they headed into town, trying to shake off the cold. It was a good thing they didn't have plans to trick or treat tonight.

Robot considered asking why Mitch hadn't invited Socks to join them, but then Robot remembered their plans for tonight also invited carrying on a task before the party at the Doppler house started, so if they were going to meet up before that, they had to leave Socks out of it, too.

It felt weird, intentionally leaving Socks out of their plans. It wasn't like they were betraying him. They just weren't being totally honest with him. He was Clara's boyfriend now, and for as shallow as the relationship was rumored to be from Clara's side of things, it was still very real to Socks. He'd never expected Clara to continue going out with him after that first date, and he never had a girlfriend before. He wasn't ready to consider that going steady with her was just an extension of her rebound feelings from Roger breaking up with her. He wouldn't understand why Robot, Mitch and Cubey felt like taking out some revenge on her was important. If Robot knew him well enough, he'd only see it as a smack in the face to everything he cared about.

Robot hated feeling this way about Socks. This was his best friend in the world, after all. The best proof Robot had that men made of metal and flesh could be like brothers. Socks had said a few times that Robot _was_ like the little brother Socks wished he'd had. And even as he felt himself slowly mature a little over the past two years, he never got sick of the sensation that he had a mentor in Socks.

Sometimes Robot considered that maybe his friendship between Mitch and Cubey had gotten stronger over the past few months. And maybe it had. But Mitch and Cubey often had these sort of close moments that Robot could only describe as in-jokes, that made Robot feel incredibly left out. He knew they didn't mean to be like that, but Mitch and Cubey were best friends long before Robot and Socks. They had had so much time and experiences together that Robot had completely missed out on. Socks didn't do that, however, and he always put Robot first when including him in the group, even in small ways that Robot never thought about until recently: Telling Robot in detail about things that had happened to the boys when they were younger, explaining the context of situations that made perfect sense to the others but none to Robot. And always making sure he was up to speed with the group.

Likewise, Robot made up the favor by helping Socks avoid embarrassing moments, like when he had a booger hanging out of his nose that one time in math class, or creating a distraction when Socks' pants had ripped in the middle of the hallway, pretending to have a meltdown. Socks sort of had a knack for embarrassing himself, and Robot, who felt like he was constantly embarrassed during his first semester of Polyneux, didn't mind deflecting some of Socks' shame towards himself. After all, most of the school thought he was a freak anyway. There was nothing he could do about his robot-ness. Might as well put it to good use.

Maybe that's how Robot and Socks became best friends. The little ways they looked out for each other.

But tonight, Robot was about to partake in an activity that, if worked correctly, was going to smash Clara's reputation down to size. This would, by extension, ruin what was probably the only chance that Timothy "Socks" Morton would graduate middle school popular. And Robot felt pretty guilty about the idea that Socks was never going to know who wrecked his girlfriend's party, and her social image.

But then, Robot remembered that strangely jealous sensation he had had about Socks and Shannon's closeness-before Clara had entered the picture-and suddenly, Robot didn't feel bad about what he was going to do.

The apartment James apparently rented was the ground floor on a three story building, almost clear across town. It was one mother of a commute, especially as Robot was half anticipating a walk no worse than the one from his house to the arcade. Cubey had his skates, and Mitch had had his bike, but there was no seat for Robot up front like there was on Socks' bike, so Robot had to keep up with his wheeled friends on foot. He hoped his battery would hold out until at least midnight of tonight, or he was going to end up falling asleep before they escaped Clara's Party.

When they finally arrived, the look of the area was enough to make the boys legitimately nervous, if any of them weren't already. James' neighborhood reeked of poverty, from the lawns that were more dirt patches than grass, to the bars on the basement windows, to the rusted out cars with broken windows that lined the street.

"You sure this is the place?" Cubey asked.

Mitch pulled the piece of record paper out from Nob's office from his pocket and unfolded it. "Eighty nine Larkview Drive. This is the place."

"It must be this one," said Robot, pointing to the third building on their left.

It was a tall, yellow bricked apartment complex, with an unlocked outside door that lead the boys into a long inside hallway. Compared to the rest of the neighborhood, this building felt particularly well-kempt. Maybe even homey. There was even a well-swept welcome mat on the inside of the hallway.

"How are we gonna find him in this massive place?" Cubey asked.

"Look here," Robot told his friends, pointing to a copper looking box jutting from the wall up ahead. "Let's look for the mailbox. That'll tell us which apartment he's in."

The boys hurried over to the copper mailbox and quickly noticed the name 'Saito' scrawled on the third door of the total ten. "James' last name!" Mitch said. "He's in Apartment Three!"

An unfamiliar, angry voice from behind made them all jump. "What are you boys doing here?"

Robot and the two humans spun on their heels, beholding what might have been the tallest, widest woman they'd ever seen. Complete with a blue dress and a beehive hairdoo, she cast a shadow so wide, it was light nighttime had suddenly fallen.

"You kids don't live here," she told them. "And I won't deal with any tricks this year. My tenants don't give out candy-my order."

Robot gulped. "Excuse me, ma'am, but am I to extrapolate that you are the landlord?"

"Land _lady_ ," she corrected, snorting. "But yes." She folded her arms.

"Geez, it's a shame she won't give out treats," Cubey whispered to Mitch, "She's terrifying."

"We're looking for our friend," Mitch explained, but almost immediately after, looked a little grossed out. James was _something_ to the boys, but 'friend' might have been pushing it.

"James," Cubey told her, again feeling weird to call him by his last name. "He's missing and he was supposed to help with moving out the arcade machines. He was missing yesterday, too."

The beehive woman rubbed her 5'clock shadowed chin. "Hmm... that the strange little Asian man? Shouts everything he says?"

Robot and friends gave each other questioning looks. It didn't sound like the best description of him, but it wasn't technically wrong... "That's him," Mitch confirmed.

"Unbelievable!" the beehive woman suddenly cried. She pushed her purple-framed glasses up her nose and then put her hands on her hips, looking over at one of the four apartment doors near the end of the hallway. "He's always been a weird one."

"What's 'weird'?" asked Robot.

"I just banged on his door, reminding him that if his rent check for next month is late again, he's out the door the minute I don't get it." She pointed her thumb down the hall. "Got no answer of course. Strange little man."

Robot gulped. Either James was hiding in his apartment or he wasn't home. Or... something worse. "Ma'am, do you have the key to his apartment?"

"Whatever for?" she asked, narrowing her eyes.

"We're concerned," Mitch said, carefully. "It's just not like James not to show up to work. Especially on the last day."

Robot tapped his claws together nervously, realizing that they needed a very good excuse to break into someone's apartment, if it was paid through today. "Call it a wellness check," Robot told her, almost impressed with himself for pulling that phrase out. "If an adult goes completely missing for over 24 hours, it would be time to call the police. We're just making sure we don't have to."

The woman snorted again. "Well, you kids seem alright. And I guess a quick look inside to make sure the idiot hasn't hung himself like one of my other tenants would be good."

Hearing this, Robot was struck so dizzy that his tank nearly ejected the oil it had taken in that morning from his mouth. Mitch and Cubey exchanged mildly horrified looks, and they eyed the wallpaper as the woman lead them over to James' apartment, as if they were afraid a ghost was living in the walls, now.

The landlady produced a set of what looked like 50 keys on a single ring from her purse, and then quickly flipped through them to find the spare for apartment number three. When she had it, she stuck it into the lock and turned it, and the boys held their breath as she pushed the door open with the carelessness of the living space was her own, and it wasn't been rented out to anybody. "Have at it," she told them, after peering around the living room from the doorway. "Don't look like nobody's here."

On her cue, Robot, Mitch and Cubey ran without hesitation into the room, all shouting his name, one after another.

Right away, the apartment looked wrong. Even though they'd never seen where James lived before, living spaces were not supposed to look so barren. The white-painted floor was dusty, with clean rings where furniture had clearly sat. Robot could make out the elongated shape of a couch, and the square in front of it where a television set stand must have sat. There were loose tiles with wires hanging out of the ceiling where it appeared James had tried to do his own electrical work-and failed, miserably. Bright white squares on the wall marked where a dozen picture frames had been removed, and one particularly large one that must have been a homemaking piece of some sort.

The boys split up, Cubey and Mitch to one end of the apartment, Robot to the other. "Nothing in the bathroom," Mitch called.

"Bedroom's empty, too!" Cubey shouted. "It's too weird, guys!"

Robot, meanwhile, was checking out James' kitchen. Before he came to school, he spent time reading magazines, watching TV, and movies as well, and he'd seen at least a handful of crime mysteries. This didn't look like an abduction. Aside from the dust, the apartment was well cleaned No abandoned furniture, fixings, not even a forgotten plate in the cabinet. And aside from a horrible odor that Robot didn't become aware of until Cubey had told him to shut the refrigerator door, that too, was carefully emptied out. A lone jar of pickle juice sat in the back, but other than that, nothing.

Robot's computer mind raced to put logic to what he was seeing, to make the most rationale conclusion out of it. James had said his lease on Nob's was ending on the 31st, but he said nothing about moving out of his own apartment. Then again, if James had truly believed Nob's was donefore, it would make for the perfect time to leave for... what?

And why did he let Robot believe that he was willing to stick around to see if Nob's could be saved if he knew he wasn't going to be here anymore? What was the point?

Robot knew only one thing: James was the biggest jerk that ever lived. And he felt sorry for feeling sorry for him.

"Looks like James hoped town or something," Cubey said. "Where do you think he went?"

"You don't think he did any crimes, do you?" asked Mitch.

"Oh!" Cubey said, sounding all superior and putting his hands on his hips. "Who's the conspiracy theorist now? Robot's house being the FBI's storage locker doesn't sound so crazy now, does it?"

Robot's spun and gave the humans a confused look. "Pardon?"

"Eh, it's nothing, Robot," Mitch said, wagging his hand.

Robot then looked to the landlady, who looked miraculously unimpressed with the boys' findings-or, lack thereof. "So, the bum left town, eh?"

"Yes ma'am, it would appear that the tenant of apartment number three has vacated for good," Robot told her, deep annoyance rattling his words.

"Figures he wouldn't give me any notice to get this place cleaned up for a new tenant," she said, shaking her head. "Welp, at least that means I can get some more normal people in here-who pay their rent _on time_."

Robot, Mitch and Cubey exited the apartment, feeling emptier than when they had come there. The bright side was that James was definitely neither depressed, nor dead-at least not here. The not so bright side was that they were just as clueless about where he was.

"At least we don't have to worry about him anymore," Mitch muttered to himself."

"I can't believe I let myself worry about him to begin with," Robot said. "What would compel him to do this?"

"Adults do crazy stuff all the time!" Cubey said. "My dad's up and quit his job three times in five years! Maybe James was just... I don't know, tired of things around here."

"I'd book town too if I had to put up with _her_ every month," Mitch said in a low voice, pointing a thumb at the staircase, where the landlady had disappeared up a few moments earlier-to pester other tenants for their next month's rent, surely.

Robot had to agree that for as homey as this building was, it wasn't worth it to be hounded for the rent. He was suddenly never so grateful that JNZ had long ago paid off the property where their house sat. The automaton hooked his claws into his pocket. "Hm... Well, _someone_ had to unlock the arcade this morning. If it wasn't James, than who?"

The boys pondered as they left the building, passing a family of arguing tenants shuffling back in the hallway door, dressed in their Sunday church clothes. It was easy to forget that some humans had to get out of bed early on Sunday to attend this thing called "mass", of which none of his friends and their families went to regularly. Other humans had this other thing they went to on Saturday, but it was sort of like the same thing. Robot did not envy them. He detested the weekend that he had to get up early to help his father.

Which was strange, because when he was younger, he didn't mind getting extra assignments because it helped pass the time. Was it the never-ending pile of responsibilities that came packaged with being a middle school student that made him so overwhelmed at the thought of more work? Or, was it something more? Had his time with the humans changed this about him, too?

All Robot knew was that it was barely an hour passed noon, and they had a long night ahead.

Their next stop: McCartney Senior High School.

* * *

 _Originally Published October 30th, 2018_

 _Author's Note for the Story:_

 _SO CLOSE to Halloween, maybe I'll get the next chapter done on time to discuss the party?  
_

 **In this chapter, Robot, Mitch and Cubey set up to put their plan to ruin Clara's party into action, but first do a wellness check on James to find out once and for all why he ditched on 'Save the Arcade' day-only to be in for a big surprise.  
**

 **I must credit Witzels for getting the idea that Denny is the lesser of two evils of the brothers. That really was her idea, and I couldn't help but explore it, too.**

 _Whatever Happened to Robot Jones?_ © Greg Miller & Cartoon Network


	23. I Am Rachel

"Hey Justin," said one of the football players, aggressively elbowing his friend in the ribs. "Look up. Fresh meat."

Once the Polyneux boys had heard those words, they knew they were in for a world of hurt.

After leaving James' apartment building, Robot, Mitch, and Cubey hurried back to their home side of town, where the public Senior High school was located. Not too far from the middle school, it was where most of its graduates ended up going-provided they didn't make it into college prep schools instead, but few of Polyneux's graduates ever did.

As it was, Robot was fairly certain his friends-and himself, if Crowe's warning was a lie-were bound for this school in less than a year. But as they stepped onto the football field now-which towered over them in a way that made Polyneux's massive campus look small for once-they were middle schoolers. And these football players were high schoolers. And as was common knowledge, high schoolers didn't take kindly to junior high schoolers. Or, at least the jocks didn't.

Too bad for Robot, Mitch, and Cubey, because football players were the _only_ high schoolers they could speak to on campus on a Sunday afternoon. Mitch had heard that Roger Prattman had joined the football team since starting high school. He was someone whom Mitch and Robot had met in real life at least once time, and therefore would reasonably provide a reason for the jocks to not beat the snot out of them. So the middle school boys had been holding out hope that somehow, Roger would be there when they made this proposal. Maybe he would even offer some assistance in their pursuit to ruin Clara's reputation. After all, he had dumped her.

Unfortunately, Roger was nowhere to be seen, and the four football players didn't know any of these three from a hole in the ground. They couldn't even pass as high schoolers from a different area, being so short. Therefore they had no obligation to save them from the necessary pounding that the 'juniors', as they were called, earned from interrupting their practice.

It was while they were being mercilessly tossed, punched, slammed in the mud, and wrapped up in toilet paper from the boys' room-"Eh, I'mma make the robot look like mummy!" one of them shouted-that Mitch attempted to explain the plan.

It was only when bringing up Clara's name that the four highschoolers finally ceased their hazing. "Roger's girl?" the forth biggest player, a brunette, asked.

"Not anymore," Cubey explained in between coughs. He had swallowed a mouthful of dirt.

"They broke up," Robot offered, sparing Cubey the pain of talking. "Well... Roger broke it off with her. And sometimes I don't feel like Clara really got over it."

The football players looked at one another, unsure of what to make of this. The juniors wondered if it took four of them to formulate one complete thought. Finally, the blond one, who looked like the toughest of them all, turned and looked at Robot. "What is it that you want us for, again?"

Mitch shakily stood up from the ground, covered in mud. "We want you..." he said in a woozy voice, "... to come to Clara's party, and wreck the place. Have at it. Go crazy. Then beat it before she finds out there are high schoolers there. The place is gonna be packed, you can slip in and out like nothing."

The next biggest football player, a black haired guy with a nose that looked like it had broken at some point, asked in a deep voice: "You honestly think we have nothing better to do with our time than crash some lame-o pre-teen party? How bored do you think we are?"

" _Ye-ah!_ " a third player said, a red head that sounding as if he came from California with the accent he was sporting. "Like, don't you think we're gonna be busy at Roger's party, stupid?"

Mitch gulped. He hadn't thought about that. If the highschoolers here were Roger's team mates, and his friends, of course they were gonna go to Roger's party instead.

"Please!" Robot shouted, watching the fourth player prepare to take another swing at Mitch. "We swear it'll be worth your while."

"Like how?" demanded the leading player, sounding almost too bored to be intimidating anymore.

"Clara's parents are _loaded_ ," Cubey told them. "This is the first major party she's ever hosted that was open to people other than her inner circle. She probably has stuff like hot tubs, and-and games, and a basketball court inside the house, and-"

"Yawn," the second player said. "What else?"

"Aaah-ehhhhh," Cubey stammered, looking at Robot for help. The walking computer surely could come up with an immediate answer to satisfy them, right?

But Robot was clueless. He hadn't been fully awake for most of this morning, and he honestly hadn't thought of what they were going to tell the highschoolers to convince them to show up at Clara's for a while.

The leading blond football player grabbed Cubey by the shirt and hoisted him upwards to eye level. "Try harder."

"W-well," Cubey said, "There's gonna be rich people food, like caviar and kelp and whale," he guessed, taking wild stabs in the dark now. There was probably no way none of that was going to be served at Clara's party, but he needed something. "And-"

"Drinks," Mitch said suddenly.

There was a silence for a moment before the leading football player dropped Cubey like a sack of potatoes, making him grunt when he hit the ground. The other three players all turned and looked at Mitch now. "You better not be talking sodie pop and fruit punch," said the leading blond, with the barest hint of threat in his voice.

"What, do I need to spell it out?" Mitch asked, doing a convincing job of sounding annoyed. "Booze! Lots of it!"

The players all looked at each other now. Was this a joke? Robot and Cubey took the chance to look at each other, wondering where in the world Mitch was going with this.

The leading player walked up to Mitch, showing his imposing size, but not laying a hand on him. He folded his arms across his broad chest and stared Mitch in the eyes. "Are you try'na tell me that goodie-goodie two shoes Clara Doppler is going to have booze at her party?"

"There's not even gonna be beer at Roger's," the third strongest player whispered to the second.

"I didn't say Clara Doppler herself was going to be passing them out, did I?" Mitch said, smirking.

Robot and Cubey watched the blond's expression change, as the story was starting to sound believable. Thoughtful, he looked. Maybe the straight-A wouldn't be giving out alcohol, but that didn't mean that somebody _else_ at the party wouldn't. "What kind we talkin' about? Beer?" the leading player asked. "Vodka?"

There was the briefest of hesitations when it appeared Mitch didn't know what to say. However, he was saved from answering the question on the types of beverages by the brunette player asking: "And how much?"

"Enough to make your eyeballs float away," Mitch told them, his grin returning.

It sounded like something his father would have said, and Cubey cringed. However, it made _something_ happen. The remaining football players dropped their captive juniors-Cubey and Robot-on the ground unceremoniously, and then huddled together to whisper to each other. Like they were going over a new procedure right in the middle of a game. Robot couldn't imagine they were looking very hard for flaws in Mitch's claim-they didn't seem to have the mental capacity for that.

When they came back up, the leading player pointed a finger at Mitch, as if he was the only junior there anymore. "We'll be there at 9pm sharp. If there ain't nothing to drink, kiss your butts goodbye."

Mitch, Robot and Cubey, bruised and dirty and humiliated as they were, ran away as far from the football field as they could. The humans didn't even stop to breathe until the field was completely out of their sight, afraid that the players might have enjoyed pounding them so much that they might chase after them for a second go.

They ducked behind the nearest fence they spotted, and Robot rested on his knees as he let Mitch and Cubey fill their lungs with some much-needed oxygen.

When he could finally articulate again, Cubey was furious. "YOU-" he shouted, coughing again, "IDIOT. How. Are we. Going to get beer? We're only 13!"

"Well, I had to tell them s _omething_ to get them to stop whaling on us!" Mitch shouted at him.

"It doesn't matter!" Cubey interrupted, stretching his arms downwards as he shouted up at his slightly taller friend, and looking so pained to do so. "Once they show up to Clara's and there's no drinks," he said in between grimaces, "We might as well pick out our headstones! We can't even go to Clara's party now! We'll have to live underground, eat only crackers and drink... I don't know, _dehydrated milk_ for the rest of our lives!"

"Guys, please!" Robot ordered, authoritatively, coming over and pulling Mitch and Cubey away from each other with firm, confident swings of his arm. "Stop your arguing! You're behaving like the Yogmans!"

This insult must have snapped them out of their pride, because Cubey and Mitch looked at Robot, and then pulled away from each other. "Low blow, RJ," murmured Mitch.

Robot sighed, and then told them. "Now, we have a problem, and we must find a solution, correct? We'll need to work together."

"Yeah," Mitch said, chin slowly tilting downward, as if he were ashamed now. "But it's kind of a big problem."

"Do either of your dads keep beer in the house?" Cubey asked, hopefully. "My dad used to, but he quit a year ago."

Robot shook his head-an obvious answer that Cubey should have expected. Though some robots could take in alcohol, Robot's father couldn't handle it. They both looked at Mitch now, and Robot was surprised to see how suddenly uncomfortable he looked. Did the embarrassment of his plan suddenly hit him that hard? "My... dad doesn't, but my mom goes out," the long haired brunette answered quietly, not looking at either one of them. "She doesn't keep any in the house. My dad won't let her."

Robot and Cubey kept their mouths shut as it dawned on them where Mitch had gotten the idea to spit out what he had said. The three boys stood there, two in all kinds of body aches, one made of metal and thoughtfully pulling clots of wet toilet paper out of his joints, just as humiliated as they were.

Alcohol sellers age-carded humans, and even Robot was technically too young to buy it. Cubey asked if Robot was capable of printing a fake ID with one of their faces on it, and Robot admitted that, yes, technically he could print very thin, little plastic cards. With one of their pictures and a fake birth date on it, it just might pass for real-with a careless enough clerk on hand, at least.

But there was one problem: Well, two. Even if they could afford the beer-which they could barely do, if they put their allowances together-none of them could hope to pass for 21 if the clerk dared to look down at who they were selling to. They were all too short, even Mitch, who was near tallest to Socks. They could pretend to be midgets, but Robot somehow doubted that even the most careless cashiers had never heard that excuse before.

Socks was put in charge of the register on the last day of the arcade because even though he wasn't a tough guy, his height made people who were dealing with him treat him as if he was older. It was totally unfair to Mitch, since Mitch and he were both in the same month, and Mitch got none of that treatment. But Mitch was mature enough to acknowledge why things worked the way it did.

If Robot made a fake ID for Socks, it could very well pass for real. They only needed to make one purchase with it, and never again. Robot was beginning to feel strangely very guilty about the dilemma they were in. What irony this was that when they really needed Socks, he was the last person they could go to for help?

The boys discussed options as they achingly walked back home to change into their costumes. The sun was just starting to set when the boys departed at the bus stop to stumble back to their respected homes.

Robot already had his costume laid out from when he left this morning, not knowing how long it was going to take to convince the high schoolers to get in on their plan. Of course he was going to be Frankenstein's monster again-he didn't have any sort of time to put together a new costume, let alone think of one. And everybody had really taken a liking to his costume last year. Maybe it was good enough to warrant wearing twice.

When he was finished, he spun himself around in his full length bedroom mirror, expecting to be just as impressed with his transformation as he was last year.

Instead, the transformation was very lackluster.

Last year, Lenny had teased Robot by saying that he didn't need a costume, and that he was scary enough just the way he was, everyday. The words didn't really mean anything to him until he scared away a toddler just by being near him, no costume. His robotic abilities had freaked out a couple of kids at Polyneux before and thought not much about it, but scaring a little kid had done a number on his self esteem.

It wasn't until Lenny came to Roger's Halloween party that year, dressed in an ugly, crude Robot Jones costume, that Robot finally realized how stupid this was. He refused to feel like a freak all the time because of one unfortunate incident. And now, after two years of middle school, nobody flinched at the sight of him anymore. Sometimes he almost forgot that he was still 'the other', among the majority.

Dressing up for Halloween, however, was what kids do to feel different from one another. Freak or not anymore, Robot didn't need that. He wanted full integration with the humans, and he didn't want to tear down his success up to that point just to go to this costume-only party. He was done with feeling different.

On the other hand, because this was a Halloween party, being a monster was the norm for tonight, wasn't it? He'd be more out of place if he didn't dress up at all.

Robot's head ached, and he wasn't sure if it was from this massive illogical error, or the shot of coffee wearing off.

Even if wearing a costume was part of 'fitting in' tonight, what did that matter if they were caught? Not only was their friendship with Socks in jeopardy, but Robot would go back to being ostracized from everybody at Polyneux who cared about Clara. In one night, he could go back to being 'the other' once more, all of his hard work, ruined. He kicked the last wad of toilet paper he'd peeled off of his legs before dressing, wondering why he'd agreed to go along with this stupid plan.

Mrs. Jones' voice came on through the intercom not long after, informing her son that two rather short monsters claiming to be his friends had arrived at the Jones residence, and we ready to head off to the party.

Robot sighed, and braced himself for whatever was to come.

"Shannon Westerburg, if you think for a moment that I am going to let you trick or treat in _this_ ," said her mother, holding up a green-sequined, strapless bikini top, "than you've got another thing coming, young lady!"

Shannon grimaced. She had half expected this to happen. After a lot of arguing, Pam's final decision for their costumes was to be famous movie characters. For whatever reason, a popular mermaid love story was on Pam's mind, and since she was the tallest and the thinnest, Shannon was given the "honor" (if she could even call it that) of playing the mermaid. The stores they went to didn't have a branded mermaid costume, so Shannon had to make due with an overpriced generic one. After blowing the last of her savings on the stupid thing, she knew her mother was going to have some sort of comment about the skimpiness of the top. But Shannon absolutely needed an alibi, and therefore, needed to give into Pam's demands and hang outwith her that night. Just this one more, she needed to play the obedient friend.

Shannon had hoped that her mother would have just forced her to take the costume back and exchange it for something less revealing, like a ghost or a demon (something Shannon would have honestly preferred to wear.) Pam wouldn't be able to argue with Shannon about wearing a less ridiculous costume if her mother had forced it upon her.

Shannon did not, however, anticipate that her mother would attempt to remedy the situation a different way: by sewing the seashell top onto a peach colored, skin tight, long sleeve top.

This morning, she came across at the adjusted costume in horror. "Oh, come on, mom! That's gonna look so stupid!"

"Shannon, this is the only way you're going out with this thing," her mother responded, matter of factly. "I know you probably had your heart set on this, but I'm not about to let you catch your death out there: it's supposed to be 30 degrees out tonight!"

 _Great._ Not only was she going in a ridiculous shiny mermaid costume, but now it was paired with a shirt that was painfully off-skin color. Apparently, there was no limit to how ridiculous Shannon Westerburg could look.

The price for giving into Pam this one last time.

Either way, this was only one of two costumes she was going to be wearing, so she couldn't be too upset about it. Because the mermaid costume, including the wig, had been so expensive, Shannon had to be thrifty about the other one. This costume was pieced together with several clothes from the back of her closet-baggy sweatpants, a somewhat better fitting sweatshirt, black gloves and, most importantly, a pair of huge rain boots, size 20 in men. These things had been bought for Shannon for use on particularly rainy days, because the left one was large enough to house her prosthetic leg. Alas, upon actually using the shoes, there were two problems: The prosthetic foot _did_ fit, but only barely. Her size 9 right foot, however, knocked around loose in the massive boot and constantly threatened to fall off. Because of this, they were doomed to banishment in the back of her closet, along with all of her clothes that were too dark to wear, unless she suddenly decided to join the goth click, or she had a funeral to go to.

To fix the boot-fitting problem, Shannon had to stretch out the left boot as much as she could, while wearing three pairs of wool socks on the right. Her right foot was going to feel like it was trapped in an oven, but this was the only way. Above all else, looking cool included, it was important that nobody figured out who she was.

Before Pam and June showed up, Shannon had shoved the black clothes and boots into a large backpack-her schoolbag that her mother had bought for her two years ago. A lot of middle school girls didn't bother with backpacks, and neither did she. Because it was practically new to her, she was gratefully to discover that it did, in fact, hold everything she needed for tonight.

Shannon justified the ridiculous load she was bringing by telling her mother that she was sleeping over at Pam's house that night, and that she had stuffed in an extra blanket and pajamas. In reality, Shannon had hid one of her comforters and pairs of pajamas in the back of the closet, just in case her mother got suspicious.

Since Pam herself was under the assumption that Shannon was sleeping over as well, Shannon would have to think of a way to ditch the backpack and claim that she had nothing to wear to sleep that night, then retrieve it in the morning. The end result might be that Shannon was forced to sleep in Pam's grandmother's moo moo, but if this all worked out the way she planned it to, it would be so worth it.

Then it was time to dawn the mermaid costume, and Shannon found out just how hard it was to attach a wig. Shooing her mother away, Shannon had to figure out where to pin the wig's hair so that none of her real hair was showing. Twenty minutes into the struggle, Shannon regretted just not being a natural blond.

When she finally had it to where she was satisfied, Shannon asked her mother if she could wear some make up-just for tonight. "I'll look so much more like Darrah Hannyl if I do!"

Of course, the answer was a resounding 'no.'

But once again, Shannon had figured as much, and though she didn't leave the house wearing any makeup, she had picked up one of her mother's mascara tubes, sitting in a drawer next to the toilet, and slid it into the sleeve of her shirt.

Pam's grandmother's car, a beaten up old VW bug, arrived at Shannon's house less than ten minutes later. It was already dark out, and Mrs. Westerburg hadn't lied about how cold it was outside. Shannon found out quickly just how difficult it was to walk in a mermaid suit, with her legs constricted to very small steps, and cussed several times as she inched her way down the steps and carefully crawled into the back seat of the car.

"Gosh, Shannon, what'd you pack for, the moon?" Pam asked, glaring at Shannon shoved her backpack between her legs and the passenger's seat. She was the last one to be picked up, with June crushed against the door on the driver's side.

Normally, Pam would sit up by her grandmother, while the two smaller girls had the entire back row to themselves. But tonight, the passenger's seat was occupied by Pam's Grandmother's boyfriend-a greasy looking man whom Shannon always thought looked too young to be dating a grandma. "Oh, just the necessities," Shannon said, trying to be nonchalant.

"Hehehe," the boyfriend laughed. "Girls never go anywhere traveling light, do they?"

"Now Jimmy, you better be nice to these girls," threatened Pam's grandmother, "Or I'll tan your hide."

"I swear, I'll be on my best behavior," Jimmy answered, raising his hands in defense.

"You tell 'em, Gran!" said Pam, smiling proudly at her.

Shannon and June exchanged mildly uncomfortable expressions. It had been a long time since Shannon had been stuck alone with Pam and her Grandmother, and she had forgotten how awkward it could be. So she felt particularly grateful that June was with them tonight.

Even if Shannon didn't plan on staying long.

Not long after the awkward pause, June shifted in her seat next to Shannon. Shannon thought she was just cramped, until she spoke in an almost horrified voice. "What happened to your hand?"

"Huh?" Shannon instinctively raised both hands, the bandaged one's luminescent white caught in the passing lights from the window. "Oh! Nothing, I just tripped, is all."

"On what, spikes?" June asked, practically slack jawed. "Does it hurt?"

Shannon was very uncomfortable getting interrogated right now. She wished she'd put on the gloves before getting in the car. "No, not anymore. It's fine, OK? I didn't even go to the hospital."

June sank back against the seat. "Alright," she said quietly. But she still looked suspicious.

Shannon hated this about June. Before, when the trio was herself, Pam and Stacey, she didn't have to think so much about her little white lies, and why she did them. Why _was_ she lying about this, anyway? Was it because she was too embarrassed to admit she'd been stupid enough to try and help out a couple of claw-wielding feral cat son her own, or was she used to avoid talking about any instances where she and Robot found themselves alone?

Thankfully for everyone, the ride to Pam's house wasn't terribly long, and Shannon and June embraced the prematurely cold air the moment they stepped out of the car. June's breath came in hot visible puffs as she ran up to the door and inside the minute that Jimmy door swung open for the ladies. Shannon watched her, trailing behind in curious thought. June must have come from somewhere warm, because this wasn't even a taste of how bad their winters could get-often touching the negatives sometime around January before slowly bobbing back up like a bouy degree by degree until spring. But Shannon had never asked much about where June was from, and she thought she knew Pam well enough to assume that she hadn't, either. Yet another thing for Shannon to feel guilty about.

The minute that they had closed the door behind the last person, Shannon's nose caught the faint, familiar aroma of old cheese and used litter box. There was a cat around here somewhere, but most times that Shannon had visited, the cat liked to stay hidden. She guessed it didn't trust anyone but it's muscular, wrinkled owner, even though Pam's Grandmother insisted the cat was friendly.

The plan for the evening was to drive to some neighborhood Pam's Grandmother insisted gave out tons of good candy. King sized candy bars, she had promised.

Shannon thought at first Pam's Halloween plan was mega _lame,_ considering last year Pam had been 'too cool' for trick or treating. Shannon had only gone trick or treating last year as part of the punishment Madman had laid down, where they were required to collect money for UNICEF.

But cavity ensuring chocolate sizes wasn't the only thing Pam had promised. TV celebrity Alan Hearthrob was visiting relatives in town, and while he wasn't going to be giving out candy himself, Pam's Grandmother knew said relatives personally, and he had promised to meet the girls if they visited. Pam claimed to have such a crush on Hearthrob-one of many celebrities, but that's besides the point-that she couldn't contain her giddiness when telling Shannon and June about it.

A picture with a household name like that might be the kind of reputation assistance that could score Pam's her place on the student council-because of course, being treasurer and being the best at managing money mattered little to middle schoolers. Being popular, however, automatically won you more votes.

Shannon was impressed that Pam hadn't mentioned that a popularity peak that Pam was dreaming about would definitely annoy Clara, who was at the very top, and very much didn't like Pam. But Shannon figured such a result must have been implied.

The only price for the honor of meeting this celebrity was that the girls had to stop by and visit Jimmy's brother in the retirement home first. Very not cool, from the sound of it, but Pam need not include that part in her story of their fun on Halloween night away from the big 8th grade party. Which was where Shannon's plan was going to begin.

All she needed was a window in the bathroom, and she'd be smooth sailing.

They had stopped by the house first for a bathroom break, and so that June and Shannon could leave their overnight bags in Pam's room. But Shannon had quietly mentioned she'd rather keep her bag with her.

This was when both Pam and Jimmy-the first and last persons she expected to-looked at her suspiciously. But when Jimmy had asked why, Pam's Grandmother smacked his shoulder, telling him to not to question a lady carrying a bag. Jimmy shrugged and, while it took longer for Pam to stop glaring at her, she did eventually stop.

Shannon wished she could have just told Pam what was going on, but she needed to do this alone. As it was, she doubted that Pam would keep her mouth shut. She needed to be anonymous, and if everything worked out as smoothly as Shannon was hoping, Pam wouldn't be able to resist telling everyone that her best friend was behind it all.

The drive to the nursing home wasn't terribly far away, either-just crossing into the next town over. Shannon had never been in one herself, having only one living grandparent, and him living with them for all Shannon's life.

Immediately, she missed the scent of litter box.

Shannon didn't know what she was expecting, but it wasn't this. It felt almost exactly like a hospital, cleaning chemicals masking the smell of urine, orderlies hurrying past with clipboards, and workers with their cleaning carts. The halls too wide, too empty. By the look on June's face, she was feeling that faint anxiety of being in a place like this, too.

Aside from getting her yearly shots, Shannon had only ever been hospitalized once in her life, and the strange secondary memories that she had packed away from her stay there were flooding back at a nauseating speed. If living here was anything like it had been for her time at the hospital, she could say for certain that the 'home' part of a nursing home was a lie.

They headed straight for the rec. room-a large square room on the bottom floor, with plenty of furniture, tables, two TVs, and even a piano. The smell here was worse, definitely more bodily odor than bleach, but more comforting in the sense that life was taking place here. Two old men were hollering at one of the TV sets about the player on a game show not using up his cash to buy vowels, which seemed promising-until Shannon got just close enough to see that the TV was playing the game show where contestants had to answer trivia questions, not guess popular phrases. An old woman across from them was trying to put together a puzzle, and frustratedly trying to jam a corner piece with a middle piece.

Unlike the grumpy old woman they'd checked in with at the front desk, the nurses in the rec. room greeted the girls in costume with warm, genuine smiles. Some looked too pretty to be working at a place like this, almost good enough for fashion magazines. Shannon wondered, too, how they could look so positive, working at a place like this, too.

The worst part were the male nurses, most of which were young, and quite a few, handsome, too. They smiled at the girls, too, although a few of them snickered at their costumes. All at once, Shannon felt a new kind of ridiculous, standing in the middle of a bunch of senile old people, in a sequined mermaid costume sewn onto a tanned top, with a blond wig that was already starting to feel loose, with full headgear and a metal leg to boot. If someone photographed her like this, she felt like she'd never be able to step foot outside again. It was a good thing that she wasn't going to be there when Pam had her precious picture taken with Alan Hearthrob.

"Look, Mira!" one of the nurses told the nearest older women, sitting in a motorized wheelchair.

The old woman named Mira shakily crained her neck up at the nurse. "Rachel?"

The nurse calmly shook her head. "No, Mira, it isn't Rachel," she said, as if reciting it for the thousandth time. "But look! We have trick or treaters!"

Mira carefully turned her head foreward to look at the three middle schoolers, who awkwardly waved and smiled back at her. There was a moment of uncertainty on her face before Mira gave a weak smile back. "Pretty..." she said, with a equally shaky voice.

For a moment, the compliment almost felt genuine enough to make Shannon smile.

"Wanna give them some candy?" the nurse asked, placing a small basket of wrapped chocolate candies on her lap. The nurse than winked that the girls and gestured for them to pick a candy out of the Mira's lap. Pam, then June, and finally Shannon all carefully stepped forward and plucked a candy out of the small basket to be polite. "Thank you," they all said, individually and quietly, after they'd taken their treats.

While both June and Pam shrunk away, Shannon stayed close just long enough after her thank you to see a flicker of hope in the old woman's eyes. "Rachel!" She quietly cried with delight.

This caught Shannon by surprise. She noticed that herself and that one nurse who had encouraged the girls to take the candy both had blond hair and pale skin-or at least Shannon was blond right now. Perhaps she really did look a little like this mysterious Rachel. As such, Shannon had an idea that perhaps lying to this woman to give her that person she wanted so badly to visit-a daughter, sister, friend, who knew?-wouldn't hurt. A great smile took over Shannon's face as she said, "Uh... yes. I am Rachel. Hello."

The woman looked stuck silent by her own joy. It made Shannon smile back for real this time, and it stayed on her face, even as she finally stepped back.

"Oh girls! I found him!" shouted Pam's Grandmother from across the room. The girls hurried over to see another man being wheeled into the room, this one considerably more lively than the Mira woman. But also sporting a scowl. "Girls, this is Johnny, Jimmy's older brother."

The girls all chorused a small 'hello' in front of Johnny. In contrast to the friendly older man they'd drove over here with, Johnny's face was twisted like he was sucking on a lemon, and Shannon didn't think it was just because he was clearly missing his teeth. He bore the same strong chin, peppered gray eyebrows, and dark brown eyes as his brother, but Johnny wore a plaid orange jacket and matching cap, and was wearing wire-framed glasses.

Jimmy stood beside his brother, hand on his shoulder, asking him how he was feeling, and how 'the game' was that afternoon. Johnny's face softened a little when he looked up at his brother, thinking carefully and then finally responding to these questions. He was feeling alright, and he'd missed the game that afternoon, having slept through it. He looked forlorn then, as if he was upset that he'd missed it. But then he looked at the girls, and smiled. "Is it Halloween already?"

"Yes, Johnny, dear," Pam's Grandmother told him, her voice buttery and sweet in a way Shannon was not used to her sounding. Maybe Pam's two faced personality came down the family tree.

He smiled first at Pam, who Shannon suspect he'd met at least once before. Then June, who, as always, turned her face away and grinned bashfully at any direct attention. But when his eyes fell on Shannon, he studied her for the longest time before his eyes dropped to her feet. "Those are some funny shoes for a mermaid to wear."

"Huh?" Shannon said, her face burning guiltily. She looked down and, with a sigh, remembered that she had not been wearing the ridiculous boots yet. Shannon gingerly tugged her pencil-skirt tight mermaid tail the inch that it would go up, and exposed her metal foot and real, shoe-wearing foot.

Johhny's eyes widened with surprise. He held his hand up to his face, as if gesturing at her braces. "You're a... robot mermaid?"

Shannon looked at him, mouth agape. It had been a long time since anybody had been so blunt about addressing her prosthetic. Usually, people were too worried they'd offend her, or make her burst into tears if they just brought it up. But this was an old person. They didn't have that kind of anxiousness to them. "No, I'm not..." Shannon started.

"Johnny," Pam's Grandmother started, starting to loose her cool, "It's not part of the costume. It's real."

Johnny took a moment to process this, too. But when he finished, he fixed Shannon with a serious gaze. "My buddy in the war got his leg blown off in Normandy. He didn't come home."

Everybody went silent, and the back of Shannon's throat suddenly felt very dry. This man was comparing her missing leg to that of a soldier, one who had flight on the front lines. Someone who's honor eclipsed hers a hundred fold, and he didn't even make it home. She tried to swallow, but it resulted in coughing.

June was the only one with the consideration to begin patting her on the back, and somehow, it worked. But she'd had enough of this place. She was putting this off long enough. Maybe this was the opportune time she'd been waiting for. She pretended to cough again, and for good measure, pinched her thigh sharply with her fingernail, making her eyes water. "Is there a bathroom here I can use?"

Pam's Grandmother and Jimmy gave each other concerned looks. Pam spoke for them: "There's a bathroom just down the hall. Want me to come with?"

"No," Shannon said, a little to quickly. "Um, I'm fine."

Shannon clutched the strap of her backpack, still slung over her shoulder, as if to remind herself that she still had what we needed. Somehow a brandless black backpack didn't look so strange when it was on the shoulder of a makeshift blonde amputee mermaid.

Shannon pushed herself into the left of two opposite facing doors at the end of the hall. _Bingo_! Her eyes landed on the key this step: Her escape window, located on the wall opposite the door. It was slightly ajar, with a fly screen that Shannon knew could easily be snapped off-the shower window at home worked the same way. Satisfied with her findings, she headed for the stall, locking it, and began doing what she didn't do before putting on the mermaid costume: Disassembling her dental apparatus. While it was a pain to take clothes on and off with the apparatus fully assembled, it was even more of a pain to take it apart, dress, then re-assemble. It wasn't really meant to come off, only for showers-which was too much of a pain for her to bother with, only cleaning her hair around them. But after having worn this thing for two years, she'd figured out its tricks. Like her own metal leg, time with it had eventually given way to understanding about how it worked, and how a bobby pin used as a lever between strut and the head wrap could unhook it.

She'd started practicing taking the struts and wires down by herself over the last summer. In the middle of the night, she'd practice how fast she could disassemble the apparatus, then put it back together. After a nerve wracking first time in which she seriously doubted she could get the thing back together and would have to admit it to her mom, in which it took her half of the night to finally go back to normal, Shannon took a break from the experiment. But curiosity soon got the better of her, and she figured that if she did it once, she had to be able to do it again. And just like riding a bike, practice made Shannon better at it. In the days leading up to Halloween, Shannon had gone back to her practice of disassembling and reassembling the apparatus, and set her record time at thirty minutes. But she only needed to get the struts and wires _off_ right now. Fifteen minutes was workable.

When she was finally done, she packed the struts and wires into her backpack, and started removing the mermaid costume. Struts or no struts in the way, the skin-tight long sleeved shirt peeled off only after Shannon had wrestled out of it. After the shirt was the tail. And then the wig, all stuffed back into the bag, too. The miserable fake hair became loose with ease, but getting it out of the pins was another story. Her eyes brimmed with real tears as she forcefully yanked strands of her own real hair out in the final tug. She felt around her scalp worriedly for a bald spot, then continued putting on the second disguise. Black baggy pants, baggier sweater, socks on her naked foot, and then the boots. They were so heavy, she just hoped they'd stay on her feet.

The last part of the costume was the mask-the same one she'd seen at the pop up costume shop on her way out, the day Stacey had finally gone off at Pam. Shannon had gone back yesterday morning before heading to Nob's to bought it. It was only a dollar, and it was perfect for her needs: Generic, hard to distinguish between dozens of other hockey masks, but covered her long face completely. She took out the mascara bottle she'd stolen from her mother, rubbed the brush on her finger, and vigorously rubbed the makeup onto her eyes lids until she was certain that no part of her real skin color would show through the eye holes. The scarier she looked, the less likely that guests of a certain party would want to look at her long enough to figure out who she was.

She left the mask off for now, not sure if the person giving her a lift would recognize her with the mask on in the dark. She excited the stall, intending on checking the mirror to make sure she'd given her eyelids a complete coat of black, when she halted mid-step. Her heart dropping.

Right in front of the door was Jimmy, his strong chin tilted downwards, looking at his dry, cracked nails like he was waiting for a bus to arrive. When the stall door swung open, he peered up, looking positively bored. "What was wrong with the Mermaid costume? Not feeling it? That why you brought a back-up costume?"

"W-what are you doing here?" Shannon demanded, her cheeks feeling hot. "This is the women's room!"

Jimmy rolled his bloodshot, powder blue eyes, and hooked this thumb to the air on the right.

Opposite the wall with the five stalls, Shannon suddenly saw them. Two urinals. Compact, and as white as the wall, but there the were.

She was in the men's room. Trying to look desperate to get away from the painful reminder of her leg had resulted in her taking the wrong turn!

At once, she felt sick to her stomach. If word of this ever got out, she'd have to move to Alaska and start her life over-and not with the Americans, either, but with the Eskimos. Those who didn't even know what a urinal was. She let out a long, audible groan, and turned shamefully to the adult. "Sorry," was all she could think to say. As if she was apologizing to all mankind for breaching their personal space.

"No harm done," Jimmy shrugged. "We all screw up. But I guess my real question is, what's with the costume change? Suddenly realize Mermaids are 'so last year' or something?"

Shannon grimaced. She did hate the mermaid costume, but it had nothing to do with it. How was she going to explain all of this?

Shannon opened her mouth to speak, but Jimmy cut her off. "Look, it's fairly obvious there is something going on, and while it isn't like me to get involved in matters that don't concern me, I have a suspicion that my brother-God love him-didn't make you run off crying with his comment about your... erm, condition."

The would-be hockey mask killer's mouth hung open. _Damn. He was good!_ "How'd you figure it out so fast?"

The senior smiled. "Living a long time helps. Plus, well, I had two older sisters who got over on mom and dad a lot. You start to pick up patterns in the way they cry."

Shannon felt vile, suddenly. Had she really just faked an emotional breakdown in order to get away for a few minutes? "Do the others know?" Shannon asked. Immediately, her best friend came to mind, and while she could probably fabricate something to appease the rest, Pam was ruthless. She wouldn't let Shannon have a moment of peace until she was in on whatever Shannon had planned. The night would be ruined.

Amazingly, Jimmy shook his head. "They don't even know you're in the wrong room. They're looking all over for you because they couldn't find you in the women's room."

Shannon paused. "And... you're not going to tell them, are you?"

Jimmy chuckled, his strong teeth shining in the light of the bathroom. "I'm old, girlie. I get bored very easily. And this is all too much fun to spoil. But, since I'm technically an adult," he said, rolling his eyes again, "I have to be at least certain that whatever you're doing, you're gonna be safe."

Shannon nodded. "I'm getting a ride from my cousin. In fact, he's probably out there right now," she said, checking the watch she'd stuffed in the pocket of her sweats. "Could... you do me a favor? Could you tell them you found me, and drove me home to my mom?"

"I dunno, I'm putting myself at risk of a mighty pounding if Pam's Grandmother finds out I told a lie that big," Jimmy said with a grin, "But, for once, I think I could do it.

Shannon's heart was pounding. She swing the backpack back onto her shoulder and went for the window.

Just like she expected, the screen popped out with just the right motion, and Shannon pushed the backpack out of the window before looking back at Jimmy. "Thank you," she said, with a shaky voice.

"By the way," he said, pointing to his eyes, "You got a little bit of makeup right here-"

"I-I know," Shannon stammered. "It's part of the costume." She didn't want to sit around and explain. She couldn't believe she was getting away with this! And she didn't want to ruin it by waiting around until it was too late. Without another word, she reached for the windowsill and hoisted herself upwards. Even in clumsy, heavy boots, her metal leg proved useful here, helping her firmly grip the wall as she pushed up and through the opening. She looked at Jimmy once more, as if to make sure she wasn't being played, before letting herself drop to the ground.

The fall looked worse than it was, though Shannon would be lying if she said her heart didn't skip a beat on the way down. She landed feet down, but crumpled and ended up rolling once or twice down the hill against the side of the building. When she got up, there were soil-spattered water stains on her pants and sweater, and she was glad she was in all black.

This morning, she managed to explain away the bandages on her hand from the cat claws by saying that she tripped on a ledge and skinned her hand on concrete. She even said a friend had helped clean her up, but she didn't specify which. She didn't think, however, that she could explain away clear mud stains on her sweats on a night when she was supposed to be Harryl Dannah.

Sore, she stood, stretching her body and looking for where her backpack fell. A pair of headlights in the distance was blinking: Her ride was here, and getting anxious. Shannon tossed the backpack on and hurried down the second hill behind the retirement home. There was no turning back now.

* * *

 **In this chapter, the boys enlist a particular kind of dangerous help to wreck Clara's party, but may have created more trouble for themselves. Meanwhile, the girls get ready for their own Clara-free Halloween, but Shannon's got another plan up her sleeve.**

I'm really sorry I've let this go on so long without posting. After Halloween, time just soared by to the point where I haven't been able to get much done. I hope you enjoy it. Comments/criticism encouraged.  
 **  
** _Whatever Happened to Robot Jones?_ © Greg Miller & Cartoon Network


	24. Crashing

Back on the other side of town, Robot, Mitch, and Cubey had just arrived on the correct street, and it didn't take them more than a second to figure out which house was Clara's. She hadn't been kidding about the balloons on the PA, which were tied to the railings in two bunches of black and orange, so massive they practically eclipsed the view of the porch. But even without that particular indication of a party taking place, the boys could have figured out where to go, based on the numerous groups of middle schoolers heading inside. They formed a small line that disappeared being the balloons and were still coming: Dropping their bikes on the house's lawn, hopping out of their parents' and older sibling's cars, but mostly arriving on foot, like Robot and co. Some of the costumes weren't fit for anything but walking. Robot realized this when looking at a kid in a tall, faceless candy bar costume-too wide for a car, and too awkward for a bike. Said boy had arrived on skateboard instead, and got some hollers and 'whoop's upon his impressive entrance, but tripped on the stairs and did a face-plant on Clara's porch.

Robot was already starting to dead this. It was strange how the overwhelming crowds at Nob's yesterday hadn't really bothered him-aside from the anxiety of actually having to run the place for a day. But perhaps robotic programming had taken over then, and forced him to handle that situation logically.

With a party, there was nothing his basic programming could do for him. It was under Clara's control, not his. All he could do was thrust himself inside the biggest bash his processors had yet to experience, and try to stay calm. And it didn't help that he had four angry high schoolers coming later to worry about.

Cubey had exaggerated to the football players. By the looks of Clara's house from the outside, there would be no caviar or hot tubs. However, the house was pretty large, almost as big as that party house from last year with the dog that chased a trapped Cubey and Mitch around the yard. Just big enough to have its own reputation for being an awesome place for parties. But this was the first time Clara had ever hosted a totally open party-well, mostly. There were two of Polyneux's own junior football players casually sitting on the porch, casually talking with every group heading inside. This was probably to prevent randoms from overcrowding the place. Faceless sixth graders and kids from the elementary school trying to pass as middle schoolers.

The age-gate struck Robot as very hypocritical. If it weren't for the fact that her ex-boyfriend was a freshman now, Clara would probably welcome any willing high schoolers to her bash, even total nerds. Being older automatically earned you some level of respect, as far as Robot understood of teenage customs. Next year, Clara would be a freshman herself, and Robot knew with absolute certainty that any party she threw would not include 8th graders, not even the coolest of Polyneux's 7th grade class right now. Why did one year matter so much to these humans? Sure, it would be weird to have kindergarten age kids at a middle schooler party, even Robot could understand that. But not when the age difference was less than twelve months!

He wished he could ask Socks why things were this way. But even if he didn't know why they'd ditched him today, Robot didn't feel close enough to Socks right now to start probing him for explanations on social order the way he used to.

When it was their turn, Robot, Mitch, and Cubey approached the three steps leading up to Clara's wrap-around porch. The junior football players, leaning up against the house and dressed as a popular undead expression among students of Polyneux, were chuckling at what sounded like some joke they heard on a TV show when their eyes fell on the trio, and their smiles dropped. They pushed themselves off of the lemon yellow siding and folded their shredded sleeved arms, looking down on the shorter boys. "Password," the zombie on the left said.

Robot, Mitch, and Cubey exchanged confused expressions.

"Password?" Cubey repeated. "You gotta be kidding me! Clara said the party was open to _everybody._ "

"Unless your password is 'Doppler is the biggest liar since Nixon'," Mitch said, getting angry. "You can take it and stick it up your undead butts. This is _bogus_."

The other zombie snickered. "They always get so angry, it's so funny!"

"I'm sorry, but we don't know any password," Robot explained calmly, while his processors whirred, trying to make sense of the situation. "We didn't think we needed one."

The first zombie kept his stern expression. "Random sixies aren't allowed-especially those that fall for the old 'there's a password' trick."

"Sixies?" Robot whispered to Cubey.

"Sixth graders!" Cubey whispered back, harshly. "They think we're sixth graders!"

After dealing with the football players this morning, Cubey had had enough of being abused on account of his small statue. He stormed up to the tallest of the two zombies and started him straight in the eyes. His costume, like last year, required him to remove his glasses for the evening, and despite his unimposing size, his expression was as fierce as Robot had ever seen it. "Listen, your hostess swaps saliva with our best friend. You better let us in there right now or you're gonna be sorry!"

"Did I hear Tim's friends are here?" asked a female voice from within. A dishwater blond girl appeared at the screen door, and pushed open the door. "There you guys are!" Clara sighed dramatically, and turned to her two bouncer zombies. "It's fine, guys, I know these three."

The zombies looked at each other and shrugged. As they were heading inside, one of them stopped and pointed at Robot. "I thought that was him!"

Robot paused and looked at him, speaking cautiously. "Him... who?"

Upon hearing his voice for the first time, the other zombie started laughing. "Oh snap, I thought that was just part of the look, but it's real! It's that robot kid! Look at his costume, it totally fits!"

Robot groaned. Two years ago, just being a robot was grounds to be pointed out and mocked among popular people. Even if he wasn't a sixth grader anymore, some things never changed.

Clara acted like she couldn't hear them and guided the unpopular trio inside. Although there had been a welcome light in the entrance hallway, beyond the thresholds leading into three enormous rooms was total darkness. And it made Robot nervous. She turned and looked at them. "Alright, so, real quick, typical household stuff: Wipe your feet, use coasters, have fun, yada yada. That room right there," she pointed to the middle room, "That's the dining room. That's where all the food is. No music in there. Most of the clicks are in the other two rooms, but the dancing is all downstairs. Four bathrooms, two upstairs, one down, one in the basement-you do the math. You've got a robot to help with that. All bedrooms are within limits _except_ my parents' master bedroom, and that's already been locked," she told them, holding up a key. "So don't even try. Anybody starts acting uncool, you tell me, and they're out. Any questions?"

The boys just stared at her. It was hard to believe that Clara was spending her time giving this unpopular trio an introduction to her home, when it was highly unlikely she did this to every group coming through the door. Was it just because they were Socks' friends? It was pretty paranoia-inducing, given the mischief they had planned for her party. "Where _is_ Socks?" Robot asked, feeling guilty enough having ditched him the entire day.

Surprisingly, Clara just shrugged. "Heck if I know. Lost him an hour ago. Might be in the basement, but it's hard to tell 'cause it's so dark. I just call him when I need him." She paused, and gazed at Cubey and Mitch suspiciously. "And, speaking of dark, you guys might wanna check your face paint. Your black eyes are looking a little light, and Mitch, you've got a splotch right on your chin."

Cubey and Mitch tensed up with guilt. "Face paint..." Mitch muttered, touching a hand to his unpainted chin, which was still sore from taking a punch from a linebacker. "Right."

"Pardon me for saying, Clara," Robot said, "But as a robot, I cannot help but notice that it would appear that you are violating one of your own party's rules."

"What are you talking about?" Clara asked, with narrowed eyes.

"You yourself are not in costume," Robot said, observing that Clara Doppler was simply dressed in a cheerleading outfit for Halloween. Although this outfit was not her usual Polyneux cheerleading uniform. The sweater and skirt were red and white, as opposed to yellow and blue. And rather than the familiar Rainbow, it bore an insignia to a school he didn't recognize. "According to definition, a costume is to dress up as something different for a day. But being a cheerleader," his speech started to falter in wake of realizing he was probably wrong, "Is what most people identify you as."

Clara bore her eyes so sharply into Robot that he practically gulped. But then, she laughed. "Oh, I get it. You've never seen _Greasers_ , have you? Get it?" She tossed her ponytailed hair behind her back, perhaps trying to emphasize how heavily flattened it was, "I'm Sandy!"

Robot was clueless, and he looked to Mitch and Cubey for help, but they looked lost to. "Oh... I get it," Mitch said, slowly.

"Yeah, nice one," Cubey said.

Years later, after having stumbled upon the abominable '70s musical on a bored college night, the boys might recall back to this moment and mention that among other things that broke the illusion, Clara's face was too pasty, and her nose too big to be this Sandy character. As it was right now, however, they merely pretended to appease the hostess so that she'd hurry away to entertain the rest of her guests faster.

As soon as she disappeared into the darkness at the end of the hallway, all three of the boys let out a long sigh. "We're in," Mitch said. "Now what?"

"We still don't have the alcoholic beverages that the highschoolers will be anticipating," Robot said, stating the obvious. "Perhaps we should plan on a substitute."

Suddenly, Cubey beamed, whipping his cape back, and pulling two long, glass bottles out of the hidden interior pockets. "I'm way ahead of you, Robo."

He held the bottles out in front of Robot and Mitch, who smiled from ear to antennae. "You got it?!" Mitch practically shouted.

"How did you do that?" Robot asked, eyes wide as his head spun with mathematical scenarios for this to be possible.

Cubey quickly packed the bottles away before more guests entered the hallway. "When I went back home to change, I remembered my neighbors had had a party the other night. Got my hands a little dirty, but at the last minute, I pulled these out of the trash, and washed them out with the garden hose."

"I can't believe your neighbors threw away full bottles of Vodka and Tequila," Mitch said, looking over the labels, impressed. "This stuff's crazy expensive, isn't it?"

This was when Cubey's smile dropped. "Well, that's the thing. They were empty."

Mitch slapped his forehead, not caring if he smudged his green face paint. "Of course they were."

"What's inside them now, then?" Robot asked.

"You didn't just fill it with water, did you?" Mitch asked.

"Not water," Cubey said, shaking his head. "My dad always said that hard drinks taste pretty bad, when nothing is mixed in them. You're supposed to put soda or fruit punch with it to take away the flavor, buuuuuuut when it's straight, he said it tastes kinda like gasoline."

Robot blinked. "I thought humans couldn't drink gasoline."

Cubey clarified. "W-we can't. It was just an exaggeration. But my dad also said that this lemon water the doctor prescribed him tastes like gasoline. So... it's gotta kinda-sorta taste the same."

"Just one problem," Mitch said. "Even if the stupid meatheads can't tell the difference by taste, won't they get suspicious when they're not getting drunk?"

Cubey gulped.

Now it was Robot's turn to compute an answer for the scenario. "We will just have to make them leave before they find out the drinks are having no affect on them. We did tell them they had to be gone before Clara even notices they're here."

A group of newcommers that Robot recognized as fairly popular 7th graders forced Robot, Mitch and Cubey up against the wall so that they could pass. "Right," Cubey said. "The same way we _made them leave_ us alone on the football field."

Mitch growled a little. Both of them were relying heavily on luck for the parts of their plan to come together to have the desired affect of ruining Clara's first open party. It was making Cubey and Mitch as hostile towards each other as Robot had ever seen them, and it was making him even more anxious to find their one man down.

With another hour before the highschoolers were due to arrive, Robot said, "Come on. Let's find Socks."

* * *

The unbecoming sprint to the car had kept Shannon warm, despite her wet clothes. However, she soon got pretty annoyed at Chester for not fixing his car heater.

Shivering in the backseat of her twenty-five year old cousin's beat up sedan, herself and her bag smashed between three cages, Shannon was feeling pretty uneasy. Part of her didn't think she'd get this far. Plans never seemed to work out the way clumsy, C-average Shannon Westerburg wanted them to.

But for once, everything seemed to be doing just that. She had her disguise, her ride, and her escape ride, and perhaps the most important part: She lifted the lid off of one of the covered tanks in the back, just at her eye level, and looked inside.

Two tiny, black eyes stared back at her, with white shine spots from the streetlamps. And the creature regarded Shannon with a silent little flick of the tongue.

It was a snake. A harmless, common King snake, however, that Shannon had no problem with picking up. From her angle, the snake almost looked like it was smiling at her. Thus she dubbed the otherwise nameless snake 'Smiley', at least for the time being.

Shannon's cousin Chester had been one weird kid-obsessed with reptiles and small animals, giving his mother free panic attacks with the mice he brought home, and always searching in the woods for more pets. As an adult, he was hardly any different, except now he owned a reptile and small rodent shop, and his mother had a newfound respect for her son: Turning his childhood fascination into something that made him successful adult, and contributing member of society.

When Shannon was younger, teenage Chester had shared his collection of weird pets to her, and after so many visits, Shannon had gotten used to handing a lot of them. Including the small, non-venomous King snakes. Chester had even showed Shannon how to identify them away from their incredibly venomous counterparts, the Coral snake. The result of these visits didn't make Shannon want to go out into her backyard and dig up worms or something, but she was a little more knowledgeable about the kinds of reptiles than most little girls were grossed out by.

And she was knowledgeable about one fine detail that made tonight's plan form in her head: Clara Doppler was terrified of snakes.

She knew this because of biology class back in 6th grade. During the zoology unit, their teacher had brought out several covered box of specimens to demonstrate how different animals' bodies worked. The students were instructed to gather around the teacher's desk while he pulled out the specimens.

The first one, naturally, had been a snake. A King snake, too, but a dead one-even less threatening. But that didn't stop Clara from flying back against the wall with a yelp. Some of the other girls clamored around her, like she had the right idea, being afraid. But Shannon could tell they were only doing that because, even back then, Clara was popular. But the real, genuine fear was only in Clara's eyes, and nobody else's.

It wasn't even an uncommon phobia. Plenty of people were afraid of snakes, for no other reason than they thought they were creepy. And Shannon couldn't call Clara a wuss for having a fear for something like that. There were some creatures Shannon couldn't stand, even after Chester had gotten her comfortable with an assortment of other creepy crawlies. Like spiders. Shannon just couldn't stand spiders. She didn't scream when she saw them anymore like she did when she was little, but seeing even a tiny one nowadays made her heart hammer in her chest. Snakes, for whatever reason though, never struck her as particularly scary. Sure, she might jump if she saw one curled up in the corner of the bathroom at home, but sitting here, crammed between boxes and boxes of snakes just like Smiley at eye level, Shannon wasn't the least bit bothered.

She _was_ bothered by the seat, which was ice cold, even for how long she'd been sitting there. Not to mention Chester Westerburg was an awful driver. Every time there was a speed bump, he hit it at full speed, and Shannon was afraid one of the cages above her would come crashing down on her head. "Hey!" she shouted, after one particularly bad bump actually lifted her from her seat for a heart-dropping moment. She couldn't imagine how Smiley and the other legless reptiles could be so content with getting knocked around like this. Then again, they couldn't speak. "Could you try driving any less like a maniac?"

"Hey, I'm doing _you_ a favor," Chester said, looking at his black eyed, rattled little cousin in the rear view mirror. He pulled to a stoplight on an otherwise totally abandoned road, and turned around to look at his cousin. He had a nutty brown beard and wore sunglasses, even though it was pitch black out. His matted brown hair was tied back with a dirty bandanna. Overall, Shannon would think he was sketchy looking, if it weren't for the fact that she'd known him all her life. Chester wouldn't hurt a bug, unless it was to feed another animal. "You better convince me that you're not about to do something that's gonna get you arrested. Otherwise, I'm gonna turn this car around and drop you off at your mother's."

"I'm not that stupid," Shannon said, glaring at him. "I know exactly what I'm doing."

Chester shook his head, and turned back to the wheel as the green light appeared. "Right. Like you knew what you were doing when..." he muttered, suddenly trailing off.

Shannon's eyes widened. "When what?"

"Nothing," Chester said back, too loud. Too defensively.

A searing anger took a hold of Shannon the instant she figured out what he was talking about. "You know what? You can leave me and the snake on the side of the road! I'll walk there!"

Chester didn't even slow the car down, let alone look at her. But now it looked as if he _couldn't_ look at her. Like he was too ashamed to. "Don't be stupid," he said quietly.

"I'm. Not. Stupid!" Shannon shouted. Maybe it was her muddy pants, or the cold, or that she was missing out on meeting an actual celebrity right now to be sitting in a car with her weird cousin, but Shannon _really_ didn't need to be called 'stupid' right now.

Strangely enough, she found herself thinking about Robot's words to her yesterday. _Humans do not just get dumber, Shannon._ She was once a straight A student. She was once thought of as very smart. When had that all changed? Robot had pointed out that humans could only loose intelligence due to brain injury. But Shannon had never had anything like that. She looked down at her leg, which, if not covered right now, would shining like Smiley's eyes in the streetlights through the window. She wondered, even though the accident that had taken her leg had done more than grazed her forehead, too.

Finally, they were at the drop off, and Chester pulled into an empty lot on a back road to Clara's house division. Shannon pushed the door open before Chester had come to a complete stop. The girl in black leaped into the near pitch black night-no streetlamps around here-anxiety propelling her to move quickly, and removed the backpack from over both shoulders and onto the car seat. She tossed the useless mermaid costume and wig out of the bag and onto the floor of Chester's car, and put on the gloves and hockey mask. In its place, she deposited her precious cargo-Smiley. He was longer than Shannon remembered King snakes being, and he had to be curled up several times to sit comfortably at the bottom of the bag. Even with gloved hands, Shannon was extra careful with Smiley. She didn't feel like getting bit by a snake tonight, even a non-venomous one. As a reward for being treated so considerately, Smiley looked up at Shannon and flashed her a little wiggly tongue before Shannon zipped the bag closed.

While arranging this ride, and the acquisition of the snake from a park near where he lived, Shannon had had to swear up and down that she wasn't going to be keeping the snake in the bag long enough for it to suffocate. She only need about ten minutes, until she could slip behind some crowds heading into Clara's house, and get inside. Still, Chester eyed her suspiciously when she put the bag back onto her shoulders. They were both animal lovers, and a snake was still a kind of animal, so he had nothing to worry about. Smiley was going to be just fine.

It was Clara who had to worry.

She fixed the mask on her face before pulling back her hair in a tight knot and pulling the hood over that, making sure not a single strand of hair was sticking out. She closed the back door and turned and looked at Chester, hands spread out wide. "Can you still tell that it's me?"

Hanging out of the driver's side window, Chester gave her a vacant shake of the head. The baggy clothes, boots, and mask had the desired affect of making her look masculine, and even widened her narrow frame. She couldn't tell if he was impressed by her transformation, or disturbed by it. "Not really... and, I'm guessing you don't want anybody figuring it out."

Shannon smacked the forehead on her mask. "Who's stupid now? Of course not."

"Look, this is all really sketchy," Chester said, holding up his hands. "I don't want anything to do with this-least not that your mother can chew me out for afterward."

"You don't have to do anything," Shannon told him. "Just be back here in an hour to pick me up."

"An hour?" Chester asked. "Did you forget that I have a date? Try midnight, little girl."

Shannon spun on her heel. "Midnight! That's three hours from now!"

"Plenty of time to get done whatever you need," Chester snorted. "Bye!"

Chester's tire screeched as he launched out of the empty lot, leaving Shannon feeling suddenly colder than ever. The magnitude of the situation hit her like bricks. Here she was, in a full body disguise, with a live snake in her backpack. This situation couldn't be any more delicate, and she was the most clumsy girl at Polyneux Middle School. But, this was what she asked for. She kicked a rock far away with her metal leg to remind herself that she'd been tough once, and she had to draw upon that toughness once more. The disguise would work so much better if everybody assumed that she was a guy.

Shannon felt movement in the backpack. Already, the snake was beginning to get restless. Even with plenty of time to waste, now, she needed to let him out, sooner rather than later. She left the lot and walked the grass, following the road down to the Doppler house.

* * *

The unpopular trio that had insisted their friendship with Clara's boyfriend were getting annoyed when they couldn't find him.

Descending into the basement first had been a mistake. It was suffocating. Disorientating in the darkness, packed with bodies, and smelly-according to Cubey-the boys soon found themselves missing the large hallway by the front door. At least there was light up there. Aided only by the random strobe lights scattered around the room, Robot couldn't tell most of the time if the bodies he was brushing up against while cutting through the crowds were female, male, or... animal. Some of the costumes had so much fur, it was hard to remind himself they were fake. His night vision wasn't much help to him, either. In this density, the human bodies just morphed together into one big moving mess of red blobs, with few blue breaks in between. He scanned the red mass, desperately looking for a tall figure with a mass of curly hair, but he didn't see any shapes that looked like Socks. Robot did notice, however, and wonder silently if he'd just seen one of those furry suits with a bikini.

There were a total of six rooms downstairs, one being a bathroom, and one a laundry room. Both were bigger than they had any right to be, and even the laundry room was being used as a break from the dance floor. The main room that contained the staircase was the dance floor, and anybody hoping to get up or downstairs had to break the mass of bodies and deal with the numbing embarrassment of unavoidably and repeatedly touching everybody.

Robot never understood the appeal of dancing, especially in crowds this packed. If one's goal was to exhaust themselves by repeatedly apologizing for brushing skin with another, usually in an intimate area, than sure, dancing was perfect for that. But unless that person was someone you really _wanted_ to touch, like a crush, than it was just awkward. Even Robot got no pleasure in brushing some tall girl's butt as he went by, his face turning so hot that his face paint nearly melted off. But it was even worse when it happened with a guy. For Mitch and Cubey, the fact that they were still getting over the pounding they had taken earlier that same day made the constant grazing less embarrassing and more painful.

After having checked all the rooms downstairs, they retreated back to the laundry room. It wasn't well lit, but it was the most lit of any room in the basement, especially the near pitch-black dance floor, and they actually had a foot of room between themselves and the next person. Cubey rubbed the bruises on his shoulders, pain flaring up from bumping into bodies, looked mad enough to spit on Clara's parent's waxed basement floor. "When I get a hold of that man, I am going to smack so much sense into him..."

"He's gotta be upstairs," Mitch said. "Come on."

Robot nodded, the fight to get to the laundry room having taken a lot out of him. And now they'd have to throw themselves right back into the mass of bodies to get to the stairs. Robot dully looked around once more as he pushed his way through, listening to Cubey and Mitch grunt and cuss out when they hit somebody hard, his own apologies less and less sincere.

And that's when Robot noticed it. In the farthest corner of the room, someone had just stood. The big red spot, standing tall in the crowd of average middle school height. Protruding from a head, like a nose. Socks' nose!

"Guys! I see him!" Robot exclaimed.

Mitch's hand had just landed on the bottom of the railing for the staircase, looking like he was trying to pull himself out of a pile of hungry zombies alive, with poor Cubey hanging onto Mitch's waist like a lifeline. Both boys turned and snapped to attention at Robot's claim. "You better be right, Robot!" Mitch said, standing on the first bottom steps like a high diver. "CANON BALL!" he shouted, jumping down and back into the throng of bodies, while Cubey decided to take the bull approach, slamming himself into people-mostly their legs, since he was so short-no apologies whatsoever.

The boys moved much faster, now that they had a target to lock onto. When they made it to the corner, they found a pocket of the dance floor with elbow room, forced upon by furniture that had been pushed there-a couch, a reading lamp, and a small bookshelf. The couch was fully occupied by bottoms, and whenever someone stood, another took its place.

Finally, a tall couple holding hands moved out of the way, revealing the big nosed figure that Robot had seen rise from the couch. But his hopeful smile feel as the figure, he realized, did not match Robot's digital memory of Timothy Socks Morton.

The height was correct, approximately five foot eleven, and the nose was large enough. Even the skin was the same peachy tone that belonged to Socks. But this figure had jet black hair, straightened as flat as paper, and trimmed at the shoulders. It was greasy, like a ton of oil had to be used in order to get it to lay down, and left random spikes here and there. And the clothes that this boy wore did not belong to the Socks that Robot knew. Instead of his green plaid jacket and bleach stained, baggy sweat pants, this boy wore stonewashed blue jeans, black pointed boots, and a pleather jacket that looked a size two big for him. Even his acne was gone.

His voice, however, was just the same, and it was all the more shocking to hear this boy say in Socks's voice: "There you guys are! Man, I thought you'd never show!"

Robot, Mitch, and Cubey, were all quiet. And after such a long pause with a lack of response, Socks frowned. "You guys OK? You look like you saw a ghost."

"Socks," Mitch said. It was small, barely audible in the surrounding wall of music and adolescent voices.

Cubey soon chimed in with his own quiet voice. "What-what happened to you?"

Socks paused for a moment, then chuckled. "Oh! The hair!" He ran his fingers through the black, oily mess on his head. "Like it? Took forever to color, but I think they got all of it. I think."

"It's... different," Mitch tried to say.

"Did Clara put you up to this?" asked Robot, calculating the recent events and coming up with only one obvious change in Socks' life to cause this new look.

"Well, yeah, we've been hanging out all day," Socks explained. "She got me up early so her mom could drive us to the mall. After the hair place, we swung by a few stores, and she got me some new threads." He stuck his hands in his pockets and held open his jacket so the guys could see the skin-tight black shirt and cheap chain necklace underneath. "Isn't it cool?"

"But isn't this a costume party?" asked Robot, trying with all his might to avoid venting his opinion on the new look.

"It is," Socks nodded. "I'm Danny. You know," he shrugged, "Like in _Greasers_?"

The boys just stood there and blinked at him. Robot was the first one to break the pause again. "When did you see that movie?"

"Oh... I didn't," Socks said, rubbing the back of his neck, suddenly looking unsure of himself. "She just told me about it. It's one of her favorite movies, I guess. We haven't got a chance to watch it yet."

Robot couldn't believe what his eyes were relaying to him. It had been little over twenty four hours since he had last seen Socks, and in that time, he'd been given a head to toe makeover. It was so dramatic that Robot hadn't been able to spot his own best friend without locking in on his nose-something Clara couldn't change about Socks, less plastic surgery was involved. And even though his personality seemed right, it was clear that he was struggling to become the person that Clara had made him up to be-someone who gave at least a care about some dumb musical from the '70s.

"What's that smell?" Cubey asked. Mitch looked at him and began to sniff the air out of curiosity, and Robot to spin around wildly, having no idea what to look for. He even eyed his own tailpipe worriedly for a second, afraid of another malfunctioning exhaust problem.

Mitch sniffed his own armpit last, before turning towards Socks. "Are you wearing cologne?"

Socks chuckled nervously. "A little... it's kind of hot down here," he said, beginning to tug on his shirt. "It is a party, too, you know."

Suddenly, Cubey moved over to Socks, grabbing him by the shirt and pulled him close enough that their noses practically touched. "Socks, listen to me very carefully," Cubey told him, his voice barely loud enough for Robot and Mitch to hear. "Blink twice if you are being held against your will. We'll get you out of here."

Socks pushed Cubey off of him, starting to look annoyed. "OK, personal space, much? Is there something wrong with you guys?" he said, addressing all of them. "You ditch me all day and then you track me down just to hammer me with questions?" As he said that last part, he looked hurt. Robot had been under the impression that spending the day with Clara had make Socks forget about his friends, but evidently, that wasn't entirely correct.

However, Cubey was practically sputtering, he was so frustrated. "Something wrong with _US_? Socks, Clara is totally changing-"

" _Ti-i-i-im!_ " A singsong voice from the crowd cut Cubey off. "Come over here and help me unfold this table!"

Socks looked up above the tallest heads on the dance floor and shouted. "Coming, Clara!"

The boys watched Socks, without so much as a 'see you later', slip and slide through the crowd of dancers in slack-jawed silence. "-You," Cubey finished in a mutter.

"Why does she keep calling him _Tim_?" Robot asked, looking at Mitch and Cubey.

The humans looked at Robot before turning to one another. "You smelled it, too?" asked Mitch to Cubey.

"Smell _what_?" Robot asked, annoyed at his lack of a nose and how it potentially affected his understanding of the situation. "Cologne?"

The video game loving duo, who had known Socks a lot longer than Robot had, turned to the automaton, looking uncertain. "It's not his cologne, really. It's what we can't smell."

"His feet," Cubey explained. "Not even the strongest cologne can cover up the smell of Socks'... socks."

"It's pretty faint-after hanging out with him for a while, we just kind of got used to it-but it's there" Mitch said with a shrug, not looking the least bit fazed to be talking about his friend like that. "Socks knows about it, obviously, but he just never really cared." He looked at Cubey again to make sure they were on the same track. "We just think it's pretty coincidental that now that he's got this weird makeover that he doesn't smell like Socks anymore."

Robot looked shell shocked. Such a crucial detail about his best friend-the origin of his nickname-was totally news to him. And the lack of the unique smell _did_ have significance. It meant that Clara had had such an impact on Socks' life that he was willing to finally take care of the unfortunate odor that gave Socks one of his most unique qualities-granted, it wasn't one to be proud of.

Robot's still had a dull headache, and it wasn't helping him think through this logically. In a sense, Cubey was correct. Clara _was_ changing Socks, for better-good hygiene wasn't something to be upset about-or worse. Their friendship with him, which suddenly looked very fragile. As fragile as the porcelain vase that stood on the tallest bookshelf in the room.

And somehow, despite Robot's hatred for needless destruction, the anger of this resolution made him suddenly very eager to see that thing smashed to pieces. And the rest of Clara's house, wrecked.

* * *

"Password?" asked the zombie player dully, reading a magazine.

"Swordfish."

The zombie looked up, and the smug grin on his face fell. "Justin?"

The Polyneux football player looking at the unpainted, unsmiling face of his older brother-the high school football quarterback.

The zombie looked for the other zombie to back him up, but his friend had gone inside to use the bathroom. "What are you doing here? I thought you were going to Roger's party."

"Change of plans," came Justin's older, deeper voice. "The party is here now."

The zombie little brother dropped his magazine. Behind Justin were five other highschoolers in street clothes-the original group Mitch had coerced into coming over, plus two. "Um, high schoolers aren't allowed-Clara says."

"Are you trying to keep me out, Jake?" Justin asked.

There was just the slightest hint of threat in his voice, enough to make Jake lean against the house's siding, and his heart to beat faster. "N-no. Swordfish it is."

Justin looked past Jake to the door, as if his little brother had just disintegrated and he wasn't the least bit mournful about it, and swung open the door with such force, the hinge winced in protest. Behind him, the five other football players pushed through the door in such a tightly packed group, the door didn't get a chance to even half close.

It was behind these casually dressed high schoolers that a dark eyed, hockey-masked figure, head to toe in black, followed. Jake the Zombie thought that this particular person looked odd-not tall or buff enough to be on the football team, surely. And being the only one uncool enough to be dressed up for the party seemed like grounds for exclusion from the group. And yet the figure's silent, cold eeriness made Jake just creeped out enough not to question. He didn't say anything as the figure pushed on through the door in a gruff manner, taking heavy, loud footsteps in their massive boots, like they were a pirate, and their peg leg was about to fall off.

And Shannon Westerburg didn't so much as let her dark eyes linger on the zombie before stepping inside.

* * *

 **In this chapter, we meet an unwilling relative who's giving Shannon a lift to the party. Meanwhile, the boys swim through a packed basement to find Socks, and their discovery is startling.  
**

Comments/Criticism/Spam I don't care, say anything.

 _Whatever Happened to Robot Jones?_ © Greg Miller & Cartoon Network


	25. The Snake

The boys had overestimated the intelligence of the high schoolers.

Under the overhang of Clara's backyard, getting poured drink from real alcohol bottles, they barely seemed to question its authenticity, each of the six chugging their drinks. Only after consuming the liquid did they pause, and gag. "It tastes better if you mix some pop in there," Cubey told them.

"I know how drinks work, shorty," the leading football player, Justin, spat at him. However, he did accept a few splashes of cola into his red cup, and chugged his second cup with no problem.

One of the other players sniffed his cup warily. "Why's it taste to lemony?"

"That's the tequila, it tastes different," Mitch told him, turning and shrugging at Cubey and Robot to see if what he was making up off the top of his head was convincing enough. Cubey just nodded back, quickly, before they noticed.

The brunette player seemed satisfied with this, and downed the rest of his cup. The other players all asked for more, and Cubey didn't bother to spare his not-alcohol on them, giving each cup well more than a shot of the awful tasting liquid, mixed with the soda of their choice. One of them gagged again, and the boys were afraid he'd puke it back up, but he didn't.

There were a number of things that made it apparent that the high schoolers had never done this before. The first being how secretive they were being, choosing to chug it out here in the freezing backyard, instead of lazily sipping it inside the house where everybody else could see. It was almost embarrassing to see them so nervous about it. The other being more obvious, that the taste didn't seem wrong to them. It was awful, all right-the boys could see that. But if anything should have made it obvious that what they were consuming was not alcohol, the taste should have given it away.

Justin crumpled his empty cup in his hand and tossed it into the pitch black yonder of the back yard, where it disappeared. "Alright," he said, after shaking his head furiously. His clothes and hair were disheveled, and he looked like he'd been caught a mile from the edge of a tornado. "Remind me again what we're doing."

"You have to trash Clara's house-or at least start," Mitch began explaining his plan. "But don't make it obvious who's doing it. Her parents' house must cost a fortune, if enough damage is done, she'll have to get mad enough to throw everybody out. And everybody will think Clara's a loser for it."

The red headed player snorted. "That plan is so lame..." he said. "It... actually just might work."

Justin turned to Mitch. "And uh, what exactly do we get out of it?"

"Are you not listening?" Mitch said, getting loud. "You get to wreck. A. House. And nobody will know who did it. What more could you want?"

Justin peered down at him skeptically, before turning to his friends. "Girly hair has a point."

Suddenly, the largest of the two new players put his own cup down and smashed it with his foot on the concrete. "YEAH! Let's wreck this joint!"

"Just remember," Cubey said, "You gotta make it look like-"

"Yeah, yeah, we heard," Justin cut him off. "Make it look like it was everybody. Alright, boys, onto the dance floor. I wanna see how much this place can take."

Robot, Mitch and Cubey stood back and watched their band of six football players slip through the back door and disappear into the flashes of moving bodies in the strobe lights. "You nervous?" Cubey asked Mitch.

"Why should I?" asked Mitch. "What could go wrong?"

Robot opened his mouth to vent just some of the many different scenarios for which this plan could fall apart, and they could, in turn, wind up in a lot of trouble. But in all one hundred and thirty variations of failure his mind could compute in two seconds, he did not think of the version that started with him getting cut off by a gruff voice. "This the Doppler house?"

The boys turned, and saw a group of three tall teenagers, two girls and one guy that they didn't recognize. "Who are you?" asked Mitch.

"Oh, allow me to introduce us," the guy said in mock politeness. "Your Own, and Business," he said, pointing to each of them. "Now where's the booze?"

" _What_?" asked Cubey. "Who said anything about-"

"Hey, is this the place?" asked another new voice, further into the backyard. Soon, there was another group of three next to this one. And then another group of four. Some were guys, some were girls. Some were jocks on the other sports teams. Some were cheerleaders. Some were socialites in bright neon colors, and some were metal-heads with mohawks and piercings all over their faces.

One thing they all had in common was obvious. They were all from the high school. "How'd you all get here?" Cubey demanded.

"Hopped the fence, stupid," one of the metal-heads muttered. He hooked his thumb

"We heard they had booze here, so we left Roger's party," a cheerleader droned in a bored voice, flipping a stand of hair over her shoulder.

"Out of the way, munchkins," one of the jocks who was wearing a basketball jacket said, physically pushing Mitch out of the way of the door. "This stuff is for the big kids."

The unpopular trio could only watch in horror was a total of twelve newcomers pushed their way inside and into the dark basement.

"What just happened?" Cubey asked, slack jawed.

Robot swallowed a mouth full of oil, explaining the one scenario he hadn't extrapolated. "Justin didn't keep his mouth shut about the drinks. Now the other high schoolers want some, too."

* * *

Getting into Clara's party had been the easy part. Once the football players had gone down to the basement, Shannon was able to stop and break from them, letting herself blend into the costumed middle schoolers as they continued to trickle into the door.

She couldn't help but feel a little bit jealous. She hadn't been invited to this party-in fact, there was probably a bounty on _her_ head, here, specifically-and Roger's parties were for high schoolers now, including the one that was going on tonight. But unlike Clara, Roger's parties in middle school truly were come one, come all. Nerds came at their own risk of getting chased away, teased, or even bullied by the popular crowd, but Roger himself didn't care who showed up. The idea of having a most popular guy in school hadn't been that bad when that person was Roger, and not Clara. To Roger, it seemed, he thought friends were friends, and any willing to celebrate good times with him were just that. Friends.

Things weren't the same anymore. To be popular, as far as the current popular crowd was concerned, was to be discriminating.

Shannon hadn't even had a chance to enjoy Roger's Halloween party last year-his last big bash during middle school. She had been stuck trick or treating for charity with Socks, Robot, Cubey and Mitch in exchange for getting let off the hook for a crime that not only did she not commit-but that she wasn't even framed for! It was Robot and his friends who the Yogmans had framed for burning one of Polyneux's most prestigious sports awards. Unfortunately, they hadn't been able to prove that it was the Yogmans, so they never got charged for it. However, Madman had forgiven the whole event when they'd showed up with enough UNICEF cash for Madman to show off to the school board.

The only reason she got dragged into that mess was because of her association with Robot, and Madman's contempt of said robot was enough for his acquaintances. Even Shannon thought Madman needed to get over it-Robot obviously wasn't some kind of government spy after having been here for so long. Although Shannon would be lying if she said she wasn't a little curious what his purpose was, anyway. It was just hard to wonder about him when she wasn't totally frustrated with him.

And yet... last year's mess hadn't been that bad. Granted, she'd never get caught trick or treating again, and besides the fact that everything had ended on a positive note, hanging out with Robot and his friends had made for a very memorable evening. She even felt useful, for once, when comforting a disturbed Robot after being mocked by a Yogman in a crude Robot Jones costume. She was so used to his diehard optimism that seeing him upset was like daggers in her heart. She had never wanted to see him that way again, and yet Robot hadn't really been acting like himself for a while. It felt like he was changing. For better or worse, Shannon didn't know.

But she couldn't stop and worry about it. With as light of footsteps as she could make in those big boots, she lumbered upstairs. She had a party to ruin.

* * *

Downstairs, however, six highschoolers were already working on it.

As Clara was the only one taking the costume rule seriously, none of the intended party goers questioned the kids in street clothes, or the fact that all of the casually dressed ones were oddly tall for middle schoolers. One or two may have turned their heads, thinking they saw Justin Wheaten from McCartney's football team among them, but shook their heads and resumed whatever they were doing.

Justin himself made the first move, marching right up to the music stand in the basement and popping out the cassette that was playing _The Bracelets_ , throwing it casually two feet over his shoulder, and popping in one from his pocket, slamming the cassette door shut. Soon, a year-old hit with a provocative misspelling of "come" from _Quiet Uproar_ was piping into the room, the speakers cranked to the maximum volume. The transition between music was so quick that most of the party goers barely noticed. After all, changing music mid-way through the song was just common at parties.

And now that hard rock was on the speakers, the high schoolers had a cover to get loud. The California-sounding red head and the black brunette with the broken nose began swinging themselves around in a circle like playing Ring-Around-The-Rosy. Cali and Nose went for a while before letting each other go, crashing into the wall and a chair respectively, which broke under Nose's weight. Meanwhile, upon the party-goers egging, the linebacker, the fourth of the group that had pounded Robot, Mitch and Cubey began building a makeshift set of stairs out of the remaining chairs, leading up to the top of the downstairs bar table-conveniently emptied of all its drinks long before the party began. "Let me show you dweeb kids what crowd surfing looks like!" he shouted, uneasy on his feet. The expensive, but ill made wooden bar table creaked under the linebacker's weight, but did not break. It did protest loudly when he launched himself from the top and onto the waiting arms of the participating partiers.

But of course, the other players had to show off. Shouting, they climbed the bar top and began dancing. Soon, they became the focus of everybody in the room, people flocking in from the laundry and storage rooms to see.

But their dance didn't last long. When Cali got to close to the edge, an unsupported part of the bar top broke beneath his feet. Wildly throwing his arms for something to hang onto, he grabbed Nose's shirt and pulled both of them, shouting, tumbling to the floor. There was a collective gasp in the room as the highschoolers lay there, the bass of the now deafening music filling the room, but as soon as they got up and showed that they were not injured, the partiers only cheered them on for what acts of stupidity they themselves weren't brave enough to do.

Based on the way the partiers were responding, it would seem like they were doing anything but making the party better. But the head player was watching the rest of the partiers with a smirk. As if the placebo affect of the alcohol had spread to the middle schoolers, now everybody was starting to get get reckless.

"Come on, you dweebs!" Justin called to them, the only of the football players who hadn't started to act goofy upon the intake of what they thought was alcohol. "You're wasting time! Let's see what the Doppler house looks like satiny white, and cozy on the rear!"

* * *

Upstairs, that last crash was enough to catch a certain hostess' attention.

"The hell...?" Clara whispered to herself, turning away from a group of student council girls she was smoozing for better cheerleading outfits up in her room. "Be back in a second," she told them gruffly, dropping her buttery voice and putting her red cup carefully on a coaster on the nightstand before exiting the room. As she made her way downstairs, she shoved into the hockey player, dressed head-to-toe in black. Clara gave the guy-at least she assumed it was a guy-a suspicious look for a half second, and then continued on.

When Clara was gone and she was all alone on the first floor, Shannon shook her head, her heartbeat slowing down. She'd just lost the group of suspiciously casually dressed teens, disappearing into the den to look for drinks, and when she was about to slip to the basement, Clara jumped ahead of her.

Shannon had given herself a while to consider where to let the snake out, and considering how packed the basement was getting, that seemed like the best bet. In her backpack, the snake had been poking its head around, trying to find a way out, and now she had to wait for Clara to come back upstairs before she let it out.

 _Great, more time trapped here._ She consoled Smiley by touching her hand to wear its head was nuzzling the inside of the bag, and realized it was too bright and obvious for her to be standing here all alone. Someone was going to question her soon. She had to keep moving like she was busy with friends to blend in.

There were two dimly lit rooms, one of which was closer to the kitchen, where the staircase to the basement lead. Better to be closer to where she needed to be, she thought. She headed inside, making sure to make her footsteps look heavy and labored like a large guy might have-although with the massive boots weighting her down, she didn't have to pretend that hard.

Unfortunately, her want to be unnoticed didn't last very long. As soon as she entered the room, two surprisingly tall teens sitting on the sofa pointed her out. "Oh God, Eddie!" the girl shrieked, grabbing onto the boy's shirt, "Look! He's gonna slash us!"

Shannon stood there frozen, surprised that anyone had commented on her costume. Hockey mask slashers were a dime a dozen on Halloween since that movie came out over half a decade ago, and Shannon was under the impression that short of dressing up as a tree, it was the most unremarkable costume she could find. Even a tree, actually, would be more interesting.

"Hey, buddy, we don't want any trouble," the boy with the full mustache said, chuckling and patting his girlfriend on the back. "Well, come on, now, who are you?"

"Yeah, Foster, is that you?" the girl asked, chuckling, even though she held onto her boyfriend like she was genuinely scared.

Behind the mask, Shannon's mouth hung agape. A dozen questions entered her mind. What were a couple of high schoolers doing at Clara's party? Since she broke off with Roger, even Freshman weren't allowed here. But these teens were not from Polyneux that Shannon could remember, and no boy in middle school, not even Frederico, could pull of a full mustache yet. Something weird was going on, but she didn't have time to wonder about it. The highschoolers' expressions were slowly turning suspicious with the more time passing before she responded.

Suddenly, a fourth person poked his head the room, and based on his basketball jacket with no rainbows, clearly wasn't from Polyneux either. "Guys! Been looking all over for you! Heh, didn't know you wanted _alone_ time."

"Gotta 'mack before you snack," Mustache said, popping some party mix into his mouth. "Or else you give her garlic breath."

"Gross," his girlfriend said, shoving Mustache away.

"Any luck?"

"No drinks up here, but there's a bar downstairs! Let's see if they got somethin'."

The teens launched from the couch and practically ran with their basketball playing companion out of the room. All alone, Shannon let out an audible sigh. Too many close calls in too short a time. She felt like plopping down on the couch and getting off her feet for a minute before she let the snake out and had to make a break for it, but it was too risky.

Just then, she noticed a door in the corner of the room. A closet, perhaps? If she kept the door ajar, she could watch for when Clara went back upstairs, sneak down to the basement, let Smiley wreak havoc, and snatch him back up, and then get gone, leaving Clara and her guests petrified of a real, live snake in her house that she won't be able to find.

Seizing the opportunity upon first thought, she hurried and threw herself behind the door before someone else entered the room and saw the already creepy, anonymous guy behaving too creepy to ignore. She kept it just open enough to get a sliver view of the couch and, ahead of it, the hallway in front of her.

She was so focused on what was ahead of her, it didn't even occur to her what was behind her, deep in the closet. "Excuse me, but I'm afraid this rebooting station is occupied."

Shannon whipped her head around. _Robot!_ _What was he doing here?_ She had to resist the urge to tell him he was going to ruin everything, and give away her identity, biting down on her lower lip to keep her mouth shut.

Protruding from his back, Shannon noticed the cord that extended to the outlet in the wall, and realized that he was in the process of charging. Something about this site was jarring for Shannon, because Robot went out of his way to hide the way he consumed power. At least at school, he didn't bother with plugging into the wall anymore. Little things about him had changed so much since he joined them in 6th grade. She almost forgot it was something he was still required to do.

"Or, what is the human word for it? 'Closet'?" Robot wondered out loud. In the darkness, he would be impossible to make out, but because his eyes gently flashed ever time he spoke, she could make out his costumed figure, screws for ears and all. "I should know this one by now... Oh, but I am so exhausted," he said, smacking his hand over his eyes, and making himself suddenly hard to see. "Everything has been one disaster after another. Between practically getting totaled by the fists of Justin and his cronies, to getting mocked on TV for trying to save the arcade- _and my best friend!_ " He slapped his head, as if he almost forgot the devastation of seeing the boy now known as 'Tim' just a while earlier. "I don't understand who he is anymore! Oh... I want to support him, but Clara is just using him until she can find someone she thinks is better-it is so obvious, even a waterlogged calculator could put two and two together! And what is he going to think when he finds out his best friend let his other two friends destroy his girlfriend's party? What words could possibly relay just how I let this happen? To the very human who has looked out for me since I started school? Everything is so wrong..."

Robot smacked his tired head against a nearby wall, his bulb protected by the sleeve of a leather coat, which acted as padding.

"At the very least, if Socks unit is in love with Clara, I no longer have to wonder about what was taking place between him and Shannon-"

 _Me?_ Shannon's heart skipped a beat upon hearing her name. She tried calming herself down by telling herself Robot was still none the wiser about her identity, but it wasn't getting caught that concerned her anymore.

"-not that I should care anymore," Robot went on, oblivious to what was happening to his closet companion. "It has become clear that there is nothing that that human and I have in common, or ever will have in common. I think I realized this, but that I didn't accept it to be true, until we spoke yesterday."

 _Yesterday._ Shannon dared to look briefly at her bandaged hand, concealed by the glove, while Robot's eyes were fixed on the wall. His words, so frank, felt like a punch to the gut, and made something like bile touch the back of her throat. _So this is how he really feels about me now,_ Shannon thought. _He doesn't hate me. He's just done with me._ Why was that worse? Maybe because if he hated her, that would show that there was some sort of passion left in how he felt for her.

She remembered for a second the agony of her leg, before she lost it for good. The head-exploding pain, before the drugs kicked in, and dulled that pain into nothingness. Fifteen percent of her body, dead. Forever. And sometimes, somehow, in her crazy logic, she'd rather have the pain. She'd rather feel something than nothing at all. She'd rather Robot hate her than to feel nothing for her. It would mean there was still a chance.

The art project in her room, the one she'd slaved over for the past two weeks. The one that was due last Friday, and that she'd begged to get an extension on for this Monday. It was due tomorrow, and it was going to make up for wrong that had happened between him.

The project that she'd poured more passion into than any art project she'd ever done in middle school. And it didn't even matter.

In a moment where her emotions took over her better judgement, she grasped the chin of her mask and lifted it up, looking at Robot with her un-obstructed, black-makeup smudged eyes. " _Robot Jones..._ " she said in a whispered exhale.

But just before Robot turned around, Shannon snapped back to the present and yanked the mask back over her face, cursing herself silently for almost blowing everything. Robot caught the barest flicker of moment when he turned, and raised an eyebrow, but said nothing about it. "Hm... I thought I heard you speak, but it might just have been my imagination-clearly, you're one of those silent-model humans my parents say they don't make enough of. Grampz unit doesn't care for imagination. He claims a robot with too much imagination is trouble." He folded his arms like he was frustrated, but then... looked into her eyes sadly. "I don't always agree with the worn out bucket-of-bolts, but I _do_ miss him. Since he hardly comes online anymore, there is so much going on in my life, and no one talk to about it-perhaps that is why I have been venting to you about it, Strange-Human-I-Suspect-Does-Not-Play-The-Game-'Hockey'."

Shannon's lip was bleeding, she was biting it down so hard. Every nerve in her body was screaming to rip off the mask and throw herself at him, arms around him. Tell him that _she_ would be his confidant, that _she_ would listen to everything going on in his life, because she wanted his friendship.

His grandfather was leaving. Well, his mind was, anyway. Shannon wasn't sure how they accounted for the death of an AI, if there was such a thing. Her own grandfather had been losing his mind, too-leaving his wet laundry on the railing to dry. Driving the car to doctor's appointments that had never been made. Offering to make Shannon dinner when they had all sat down to eat less than an hour ago. Her ever-graceful mother drank at least a glass of wine ever night to deal with the stress he'd put her under lately. And Shannon _knew_ that Robot's parents were taking Grampz's pending loss just as bad, machines or not.

What Robot said about her wasn't true. At long last, there it was: They _did_ have something in common! And she knew grandparent problems weren't the only thing. Her heart hammered in her chest with excitement. If only she could tell him...

She couldn't. She couldn't even ask him what he had to do with all the highschoolers that had crashed the party. She would just have to wait and find out herself.

Suddenly, Robot looked ashamed. "Oh... I am sorry, I really did not mean to put all this information on you. After all, as a mute-unit, you can't tell me to stop speaking. I believe I have gotten a sufficient enough charge," he said, pulling his plug out gently from the wall, and letting it retract. "I had better go find my friends. Er... Happy Halloween."

With that, Robot let himself out of the closet, careful to leave it ajar the way she'd done for herself.

Shannon fell on her kneecaps, the backpack falling off her shoulders with it. Music and laughter and rowdier and rowdier party sounds were building outside, but in the closet, all she could hear-all she could feel-was her own pulse. Her whole point of being there was to get back at Clara for making herself and Robot have that last argument, and making Socks, one of her oldest friends, insinuate she was ugly-and, also, just to spite Ms. Perfect for being Ms. Perfect, and having everything she wanted.

But this wasn't going to fix her and Robot's problem. And now that she knew what he and herself had in common, she knew what she had to do. She had to be the better person. She had to be better than Clara.

Better than Pam.

She stood up from the ground, body still aching from the fall she had taken jumping out of the window at the nursing home, and reached for the backpack. But when she picked it up, she noticed how light it felt. And then, with horror, it dawned on her how light it felt when it had slipped off her shoulders. She unzipped the pack and reached inside, to find that it was completely empty, and a tiny hole, about the size of a quarter, had formed in the corner bottom where she thought that Smiley had rested during Robot's monologue.

Frantically, she kicked the door open for some amount of light from the room, and felt around the closet floor for anything small and tube like. Aside from a folded umbrella lying in the corner, nothing of the sort was there. She put the mask back on and searched the exterior room, the party guests running back and forth in the hallways thinking nothing of the black-dressed figure in the hockey mask, turning the den upside down.

She threw a cousin on the floor in defeat, as a shrill scream-clearly of delight- echoed from another room. The snake that she was supposed to track carefully was gone. And she had no idea where it was.

* * *

 **In this chapter, the highschoolers arrive to wreck Clara's party, but they have brought company-a LOT of company. Meanwhile, Shannon my have to rethink her plan after a surprise encounter with Robot.**

 _Whatever Happened to Robot Jones?_ © Greg Miller & Cartoon Network


	26. Pandora's Box

Aborting her plan, the masked Shannon began turning over Clara's house looking for where the snake had gone. She was being careful to look inconspicuous whenever possible. Moving random furniture, and often times simply knocking it over proved to be oddly unnoticed. And by the time she got to the snack room, she figured out why.

In the wake of the mass of partiers, every room had been transformed into a destruction site. There were broken pieces of chairs and smashed lights, enough to pile in the middle of the floor and start a bonfire-and with how rowdy the crowd had become, it didn't seem that far fetched.

She still hadn't really recovered from what had happened back in the closet. So she was caught by surprise when she saw a familiar, tall figure in the doorway of the room. The black haired, black jacketed boy asked someone near the front of the room if they'd seen a robot Frankenstein's Monster and some other short kids. When Shannon dared a look, she couldn't believe she was looking at Socks Morton. Robot hadn't been kidding back in the closet about his best friend's transformation-Socks looked ridiculous. And there was no way he picked out the new look by himself.

Shannon resented Clara for this, not just because she cared about Socks, but because Robot did. They were both such innocent, well meaning guys, it was wrong to put turbulence into their friendship, no matter what Clara was gaining from it.

She remembered something weird about Robot's speech back there, when he had said if Socked loved Clara, he couldn't possibly love Shannon-which kind of nauseated her. How had Robot gotten it into his head that Socks and herself were ever interested in each other like that? Socks was practically like a brother to her, or at least used to be. Although, recently, she wished he could acted like he'd even considered that she was a woman. Maybe she wasn't attracted to him, but Socks _was_ a man, and it hurt to have an old friend like that unable to call her pretty. Even if it was a lie.

Shannon had slipped behind the downstairs couch, on her hands and feet-wincing, as her bandaged palm beneath the glove still stung with cuts that had barely had twenty four hours to heal. There, a thought occurred to her: If she and Socks _were_ interested in each other as more than friends, what did Robot care?

Unless-

Something icy and cold splashed over Shannon's head, derailing her train of thought. She chocked back a yelp, straightening her back and looking right into the eyes of a giggling partier with an empty cup. _Another high schooler?_ How many _were_ there?

"Ooops!" the tube top wearing girl said, "I thought you were a trash can back there! Sorry, dude, but don't be weird and creep up on people like that!"

Shannon glared at her silently through the eye holes in her mask until the partier became so uncomfortable that she got up. From there, she wandered over to her friends on the other side of the room as if nothing had happened. "This one's just fruit punch, too!"

 _Shannon. Snake. Focus,_ she told herself, shaking off the ice cubes from her shoulder and back and letting them roll to the floor, like soggy dice.  
When she found nothing in the snack room, she went down the hallway and began checking the other first floor rooms. She was overhearing a lot of the middle schoolers now, too, whispering about drinks that the party was allegedly supposed to have. Did Clara start a rumor that there was going to be booze at her own party? Is that what all the high schoolers are doing here? What did this have to do with what Robot was trying to tell her in the closet?

If the goal was to get rid of Clara by flooding her house with bodies to the point that it sank through the foundation and straight to China, then it was working pretty well. Shannon grunted as she slipped through the hallway, careful to make it sound masculine. Some partiers stopped and asked her to take a photo with them, or shouted a random name her way, hoping that she would turn around. Nobody was even close to guessing who she was. In fact, not only did they not suspect she was a middle schooler, but everybody seemed confident that she was a boy. The disguise was working perfectly.

Even Robot, the guy who knew Shannon better than she wanted anybody to know her, couldn't tell that it was her. If he could, he wouldn't have stood there in the closet while he ranted about everything in his life, herself included, like she was the vacuum cleaner back at school.

It was funny. Ever since the accident that had taken her leg, Shannon had wanted nothing more than to blend in. To become the most average girl she could be. And whether or not this was made worse by the attention Robot sent her way, she was beginning to realize that maybe this was never going to happen. She was an amputee-a mechanically assisted human being. A person who's scar not only was never going to go away, but consumed one fifth of her entire body. And even if something about this hadn't fascinated that annoying robot so much, she was never going to be treated the same as everybody else. Random strangers holding doors open for her, cleaning up her messes for her, offering her help where she didn't need it. Treating her like she was disabled. That was the life she was given, no matter if Robot was around to emphasize it.

But in this costume, Shannon felt the closest thing to invisible. There were at least three other sports-mask killers wandering the house that she'd seen already-all of them shouting, whooping and wearing far more scary, decked out versions of her own costume. She was totally unremarkable.

Too bad _this_ movie slasher was also a snake wrangler, and a pretty lousy one at that. She tried to remember what Chester had said about where loose snakes tended to end up. They were attracted to water, so maybe she should check the bathroom next. Short of Ms. Perfect running out screaming and tripping with her panties around her ankles, Shannon didn't exactly take pleasure in the thought of some innocent partier going to use the toilet and finding Smiley giving them the raspberry.

Just as she was thinking that, she noticed a trickling noise familiar enough to the sound her own bathroom made when... the tub was on? Although she herself was too old for baths, Shannon did hear the tub filling up when her grandfather liked to play with his toy navy boats, and needed a wet battleground. Hastily, she swam back through the crowds, totally ignoring every person she bumped into along the way to the hallway bathroom.

* * *

"What are you _doing_?!" shouted Cubey.

While Shannon was having no luck finding her own tiny plague on Clara's party, the boys had found theirs. Robot joined Mitch and Cubey in the back yard, just in time to witness a terrific glass-shattering noise coming from the front. The conspirers then rounded the right side of the house to the front yard. There, they found Clara's undead guards long gone, and Justin and the other three football players throwing rocks from the neighbor's cobble stone garden at the front windows.

Justin had just stepped back to wind up for a touchdown-throw. It was then that he noticed the puny vampire boy coming for him, looking ready to tackle-as if that half pint could tackle Justin. "What does it look like we're doing?" he asked. "Trashing the place."

"Ey, Justin!" Nose called from around the left side of the house, "Ten bucks says I can get that bird's nest in the cross bar of the porch there!"

"Twenty bucks says you're full of it!" Justin shouted back.

Justin's friend, standing off to the side of the porch, wound his arm back and launched a smooth, fist-sized stone at the gallow-slanted beam between the roof of the porch and the pillar before the stairs' left railing. The stone missed its mark, and instead of going through the hole and knocking the nest out, hit the slanted beam and broke it in half, causing the nest to come crashing down, and its contents-two tiny, unhatched blue eggs from springtime, cracking open on the porch with a gooey, yellow splat.

"Ha!" Nose shouted, "Nest is on the ground! That's thirty bucks you owe me!"

Justin calmly wandered over to Nose and punched him in the shoulder-hard enough to make him wince. "Thirty dollars? Anthony, where'd you learn how to make bets?"

Nose, or 'Anthony', scowled at Justin. "I said ten dollars, you raised it to twenty-ten and twenty make thirty dollars!"

"That's Poker, nimrod!" Justin told him, laughing at his friend's stupidity. Apparently, Anthony was used to this treatment, and started laughing along himself.

"You're supposed to be ruining the party _inside_!" Cubey shouted at him. "Clara isn't gonna notice this mess until tomorrow!"

"Oh, would you _shut up_ , shorty?" Justin said, snappishly. "I know what I'm doing!"

"Hey, bro," interrupted the fourth football player, a black guy with dreadlocks pulled back neatly with a rubber band, looking pained and worried as he held his stomach. "I don't feel so good, man... Let's blow this place and go home already."

"Thomson, don't be a wuss," Justin said over his shoulder flippantly. "You're always going on about something."

"No, I'm serious," Thomson yelled back at him. "Anybody else feelin'- _Oh_ -" he groaned, looking down at the ground. " _Forget this noise_!"

Without warning, Thomson pushed Anthony aside and stormed through the front door. With no one to turn away unwanted guests, nothing but the door itself stood in the way of the high schooler and the nearest bathroom except the screen door, which Thomson flung open with such force, it was a surprise it hadn't broken off the hinges.

The player's friends were anything but sympathetic, both Anthony and the redhead, still presumed 'Cali', laughing at the site. "Haha, Thomson can't handle a little booze!" Cali mocked.

"Hey, when he's done in there, let's see if we can make one of those fountains out of the toilet next!" Anthony said, turning to Justin. "Dude, what you think?"

But the leader of the pack didn't answer right away, eyeing the door to the house suspiciously. He licked his lips, as if the strange lemony taste he'd commented about was still there. "Hey... shorty," Justin finally spoke in an quiet voice, slowly turning to Cubey. "Where'd you say you got those bottles, again?"

Robot and Mitch looked at Cubey worriedly, while the nerdly vampire boy started to stammer. "Well, I-I... found them. In my neighbor's yard-I mean! M-my neighbors are total party people, a-and they leave a stocked bar out in the their backyard-there's no fence, you see. I just... went there at night, and took some. They have so much, they'd never know it was missing."

Robot and Mitch exchanged cautiously impressed looks.

Justin cycled through a handful of different expressions as he thought about what Cubey had told him. Robot found it awfully similar to the kinds of expressions shifts a robot would make while trying to process a giant mathematical equation. If he was like his friend Anthony, however, anything above second grade math was sure to cause Justin's brain to crap out.

It ultimately didn't matter if Justin didn't buy the explanation, as a long, rude honk from down the street dragged his and everybody else's attention away. A beat up, rusty sedan with only one working headlight came to a screeching halt, just two fences down from Clara's house. The driver's and passenger's side doors popped open, and two tall, young men emerged. Whereas the passenger was a skinny, greasy-haired guy with a goatee and an overcoat, the driver couldn't be any more different, sporting jet black hair, a beat up leather jacket that looked passed down from generations, and wore a look of confidence that could make the coolest 8th graders shiver.

An excited grin spread across Anthony's face. "Heyyyy! It's _Pauly!"_ he shouted at the top of his lungs.

"And he brought The Stink!" Cali chimed in. "Always those two!"

"You losers didn't think I'd miss a party, would ya?" said the one called Paul, slamming the door on his side of the car. His voice was deeper than any of the football players', and had a loud quality that made it perfectly audible from the street, speaking at a normal volume.

"Oh, no, not him..." Cubey murmured.

Robot leaned in close to Mitch's ear. "Who are _these_ humans?" he whispered.

Mitch groaned. "Paul's the highschooler's party boy. Steve used to go on and on about him."

"For what?" Robot probed.

"This place is deadsville, bro," Justin shouted to Paul from across the lawn. "Liquor is all gone." He turned and glared at Mitch. "'Enough to make your eyeballs float away. _'_ Yeesh."

Paul only laughed, his voice booming though the neighborhood, like some unkind God. "I knew this dump'd be dry." He slammed the driver's side door closed and thrust open the backseat one. "Which is why your boy came prepared."

Paul reached into the back seat, grabbing something large, but cast in a shadow from the car's interior roof. When the young man proudly thrust it above his head, however, it was clear to everyone what it was. " _Corona_ , anyone?"

" _Real_ beer?!" Robot asked Mitch in a hushed shout.

The boys stared at the box of bottles, and watched 'The Stink' produce a second box just like it. And then a third. "We're dead," Mitch said at last.

Before the middle schoolers could even think of how to stop this from happening, Anthony and the remaining players ran to the car and helped Paul unload his stash, with Justin following pretty quickly, but beginning to look queasy. The group then charged back into the house, carrying a total of five cases of beer.

Not sure what to do, Robot, Mitch and Cubey doubled after them, all flying through the doorway, one after another, before the screen door even had a chance to close. But with their longer legs and the excitement of getting buzzed, the high schoolers kept a steady pace ahead of them.

Robot's head was spinning with questions. "How could that Paul human possibly have obtained all that alcohol?"

Between catching his breath, Cubey answered: "I don't know! Steve said Johnny would pay homeless people to buy it for him since he's underage."

" _Yeah, right_ ," Mitch said sarcastically. "Probably makes him sound more gutsy. My neighbor Martin says his uncle works for the company that makes the stuff. Either way, he's got access to it, and a lot _of_ it."

"What are we gonna do?" asked Cubey. "Ms. Popular's gonna know there's something up once her guests start getting drunk!"

"What can we do?" Mitch asked.

The boys all slowed to a stop, just in front of the kitchen. Like longstanding friendship had given the pair psychic abilities, Mitch and Cubey gave each other knowing looks.

"Bail?" Mitch asked.

" _Bail_ ," Cubey echoed, in a sigh of relief.

"But we can't just leave now," Robot said. "This has all gone too far! Our plan was to get Clara upset enough to cancel her party-not get half of Polyneux and an assortment of high schoolers inebriated! Besides, what will Socks think when we have disappeared?"

"Come _on,_ Robot," whined Cubey, "Unless Justin blabs, nobody is going to trace this back to us."

Though his reasoning was decent, based on the way he was looking over his shoulder every other second, Robot decided Cubey wasn't certain about this at all.

The automaton watched a bunch of six foot tall teenagers push his friends out of the way to get to the basement. He was well past the point of being intimidated by these idiotic, hormonally controlled humans, glaring at every one of them as they passed. "Listen, I was just as excited as you two about getting back at Clara for making us all look like fools, especially Socks," Robot added, looking pained as he said his best friend's name. "But this situation has the potential to get someone really hurt. You can head home if you like, but I'll never forgive myself if something happens to Soc-."

As if on cue, another crash from somewhere in the basement cut Robot off, making all three of the boys wince. They turned to the door of the stairs leading to the basement, and then at each other. "Me either," Mitch admitted.

"Fine," Cubey said, "We'll get Socks out of here- _then,_ we run for it."

"So, what's the plan?" asked Mitch.

Robot tapped his chin thoughtfully. "We're going to have to tell him _some_ of the truth,"

"That a bunch of high schoolers broke in with beer and this place is about to get real crazy real quick?" Mitch said.

Robot grimaced. "I was hoping that we could be a little more frank about our involvement than that. But it's a start."

The three of them hurried for the staircase to the basement as Robot mentally estimated how much time it would be before Clara approached the increasing noise on the opposite end of her home.

* * *

Meanwhile, Polyneux's cheerleading captain had just left her room again when she heard the sound of a mass of bodies passing through the house all at once. She quietly ignored guests clapping and congratulating her on the 'awesome' party. She stood motionless in the narrow, carpeted hallway after a dozen boys cornered her just to whooping her name-a bunch of which looked unfamiliar and almost too old to be from Polyneux, but they might have just been nobodies who didn't make it into Clara's mental record. Between the increased noise and the sensation that the house was suddenly too full, Clara felt like she had definitely lost control of what was going on now. The question was, what _was_ going on?

"Your house is rad, Clara!" shouted a voice from the top of the staircase. It was one of Socks' basketball teammates-someone with a hideous premature mustache Clara couldn't be bothered to remember the name of. She was never a fan of the sport, focusing more on her cheerleading routines whenever she had to attend one of the Polyneux games. Likewise, she was never a fan of the boys who played it. Football players where were the status was at, and she would have gladly gone out with one of Polyneux's very own, if they had only asked her out before Socks had.

Losers.

It was only then that Ms. Doppler remembered that same boy who identified as her boyfriend. Part of her wanted to find him and make a quiet, romantic spot for themselves somewhere in this house, and try and pack away her increasing suspicion that something wasn't right.

Or at least she did, until another one of Socks's teammates added to that remark. "Yeah, you got some sick light setup downstairs," the skinny, un-mustached player said, leaning against the stairs railing, "And I don't know where you get your decorations from, but I swear the blinking skull on the back of the toilet was staring at me. And don't even get me started on the snake in the laundry room."

Clara's eyes widened just to the point that the top of her irises were visible. "Snake?"

"That little snake dude you got slithering around the house! Freaked us out. Man, I wish my parents were as loaded as yours."

"Come on, let's get some munchies," the mustached boy said.

And with that, they hurried down the stairs to the first floor with all the snacks, leaving the cheerleading captain standing there with her heart pounding. She knew all about her parents' Halloween decorations, because she herself was tasked with putting up a lot of them, as well as other chores. She knew about the blinking eye skull in the downstairs bathroom, the sinister neon eyes that hung from the ceiling upstairs, and the cackling rug in the second floor hallway. There was even a big spider in the that came down from the ceiling when an unlucky guest walked under it.

But she didn't have a pet snake, and neither did her parents. Nor was there any sort of prop that could be mistaken for one. Clara pinched her palms with her manicured nails, holding in a breath. Maybe the boys were just messing with her. After all, it wasn't hidden knowledge that she had a phobia for snakes. It would also explain this undeniable sense that she was getting played with. _  
_  
She made a slow, calculated walk back down the stairs, determined to find out what was going on once and for all.

* * *

At the same time that Paul and 'the Stink' had pulled up to Clara's home, Shannon had just finished clearing every inch of space in the first floor bathroom, right next to the staircase, and just before the hallway to the kitchen. As it turned out, it not only was furnished with a bathtub, but it had been left with its water turned on and no obvious culprit. No snake, however.

She was still inside the bathroom when a tall, muscular African American boy poked his head through the crack, saw that the toilet was not in use, and then pleaded to use the bathroom. With the door slamming in her face, Shannon was left to stand exposed at the front of the first floor hallway.

She didn't even have time to analyze what had just happened before she heard the front door slam open yet again, and witnessed the stampede of a new batch of partiers going to make the house even more packed. They brushed past her as if she was nothing more than wallpaper, one of the larger new partiers with a crudely repaired nose charged through the narrow clearing to the kitchen, carrying a box with something glass-like and clanking inside.

Along with them came two of the tallest guys Shannon had seen yet. One was skinnier than Shannon herself, who looked weighed down by his long hair and heavy clothes. The other, sporting a mustache and black leather jacket, Shannon was positive was not only a high schooler, but old enough to pass for an adult.

"Now the party's really starting!" shouted the voice of the person carrying the box of bottles, as he stood before the basement staircase. "Any of you fellas twenty one?"

One of the boys, blond and slightly more muscular, behind him thumped him in the back of the head. "None of them are, bone head!"

Anthony cringed, but did not drop the beer case. "Ooops, sorry."

While the others were strangers to her, Shannon recognized _this_ guy-it was Justin, the most popular member of the high school football team. A ton of girls at Polyneux had a crush on him, or at least brought his name up in the bathrooms. Seeing him for the first time now herself, Shannon admitted he was probably pretty handsome in photographs. But there was nothing attractive about the sweaty, nauseous expression on his face as he looked back down the hall, as if worried he was being followed.

Justin and the other was followed by two fairly homely boys roughly his size that Shannon guessed were on the team too, one of which spoke in a Californian accent and also looked mildly sick. From what, she could only guess. For Shannon, it was nauseating enough to think of Justin about to unleash Pandora's box on an already anarchic party.

Just then, she noticed three familiar boys following after the beer-bearing high schoolers. Not only were they short, but they were all wearing their costumes from last Halloween.

Shannon swallowed a stone-sized lump in her throat. Whatever they did to contribute to all this, they were in so much trouble. She couldn't stand the thought of it, especially for someone as good as Robot. She had to get them out of here.

Downstairs again, bottles were being passed out. Cuss words broke the surface of the music like bouys on water when some of the partiers tried opening the bottles with their hands, and cut themselves open on the caps in the process. Someone shouted for a bottle opener, and then another, before someone got impatient enough to get creative. Shannon watched a figure smashed the neck of their bottle against the corner of the doorway, leading into the laundry room. She cringed as she watched someone else catch onto the idea, and then another, and then another. Whoops of celebration filled the room until Shannon couldn't make out the lyrics of the music anymore.

Her back hugged the wall as she tried her best not to get noticed-and avoid the shards of glass that were quickly filling the air. At once, she realized a snake was probably the least of Clara's concerns, if she ever even realized it was here. Never did Shannon feel such an instinct to flee from an impending punishment bomb before it hit.

Further into the dance floor, Robot raised his head above the crowd, his pupils growing as he narrowed in on a target. He dropped his head, disappearing beneath the wall of humans. Baffled, she turned and focused as best as she could on the place Robot had been staring at. She had no idea what or who he was looking for, but she had to get to him first.

Shannon darted for him like a bullet for a target. She shoved shoulders aside to get through, the scrawniest of girls and the brawniest of guys no match for her adrenaline. She didn't who griped at her for it or threatened to make her flat as the carpet. There was sweat running down her forehead behind the mask and pooling on her upper eyelid, and the black eye makeup was starting to irritate. She blinked it away and kept making her way closer to Frankenbot.

"Socks!" Robot called, his voice defined but low beneath the cacophony. "Socks?"

Though he may have gone by a different name now, young Mr. Morton appeared at the sound of the robot's call. Robot was still so used to him being blond and acne covered that it took him a moment to register that he had found him. "Robot, what's going on?" he asked.

They were closer to one of the blinking party lights, and Robot could see for the first time how worn out he looked. Like being taken under Clara's wing and social circle had snatched away a week of his sleep. Despite this, he still looked concerned. Socks could recognize the tell tale signs of distress in Robot's computerized voice.

In the distance, something else that sounded like glass shattered, and Socks and Robot both looked off into the dark of the basement. "Is it me, or are things getting a little crazy?"

"Listen, something serious is going on," Robot summarized. "Mitch, Cubey and I are leaving, but we need you to come with us! We'll explain later."

Socks looked mildly confused. "Leave? But I can't go anywhere. Clara's coming back for me any second."

This was the moment that made Robot lose it. He turned to his best friend and gave him the most disbelieving stare. "Socks, Clara has not spent a _moment_ with you since the party began. She is _not_ looking for you. And she's not going to notice when you are outside with me and the boys. Now, let's _go_!"

Robot grabbed Socks' hand as he made visual calculations for a path out, but Socks effortlessly broke from his grip. "Hold on," he said, taking a step back. "What gives you the right to make calls about my girlfriend like that?"

Like a token inserted into a brand new video game, Robot felt his heart drop to the bottom of his chassis, and nearly heard the 'ting' it made. "Socks, this is _not_ the time to talk about this."

"Well, I think it is!" Socks said. "I looked all over this place for you! Cubey, Mitch and you go running around this house without me for over an hour, and you think you have any right to say anything about Clara leaving me here by myself!"

"Socks, this is different!" Robot pleaded. "There's a lot you don't know-"

"Because I'm stupid, right?" Socks asked, getting angrier. "Mr.-Can't-Do-Basic-Essays? Mr.-Needs-His-Best-Friend-The-Robot-To-Fix-His-Math-Homework? Mr.-Toilet-Paper-Stuck-to-His-Shoe!" He grabbed chunks of his hair on the side of his head and yanked as he remembered that day at the library not too long ago.

"I never made fun of you for that," Robot said, earnestly.

"But you're still so sure you know more than I do. Newsflash, Robot! I was the one who introduced you to everything! Not _you_! I even introduced you to Shannon, and after all the time I spent trying to set you and _Shannon_ up, did I _ever_ once tell you that maybe she's just not interested in you that way?"

Robot narrowed his eyes. Of all living beings, man or machine, on earth, Socks was the _last_ person he wanted to hear an 'I was right' from about that girl. "Don't drag Shannon into this," he said, his voice low and threatening.

"Why shouldn't I?" Socks shouted anyway. "All I've ever done is try to be supportive of you. I've known Shannon way longer than you, and _I_ know her better! You wonder why we're not as close as we used to be? You don't even know what she was like before the accident! She's changed!"

Robot's jaw dropped. He didn't know whether to be furious, or crushed. "Oh... so you _would_ throw that information in my face! I don't see why knowing Shannon longer matters now, since you're so convinced about Clara's rightness for you."

Beneath the anger, Socks looked confused. "Matters now? Wha-what are you talking about?"

"What are you _both_ blabbing about?" demanded Cubey, as he and Mitch had finally caught up to Robot. "We have to get out of here!"

 _"What_ is going on?" counter demanded Socks.

It was at the end of their argument that he and Robot simultaneously noticed the music suddenly cut out. And it wasn't long before others noticed, too. Anybody who had continued to dance through the madness lost their groove without a song to move to.

Pushing her way through the dance floor, Clara Doppler emerged before the boys. The hostess of the party was suddenly the center of attention, and it was obvious that she was not happy.

In turn, Robot, Mitch, and Cubey backed slowly away, disappearing as best as they could. If this were a video game, Robot pictured a simple 'Game Over' screen appearing right at this very moment. But this wasn't a video game. They had lost, but there was no starting over.

"Baby, what's going on?" asked Socks.

He reached for Clara's hand, but she snatched it away. "Don't 'Baby' me right now. Someone's screwed with my party, and I'm going to get to the bottom of this." She turned away and did a half circle, looking everyone she could in the eyes. "And when I find out who did it, there are going to be consequences!"

Suddenly, just as Clara's rant had ended, a hand grabbed Cubey out of the darkness and hoisted him up into the air. The sudden motion caused a circle of gasps to spring up around the short vampire, followed by a chorus of laughter at seeing the puny vampire dangling helplessly from the collar of his costume.

Mitch and Robot, watching in shock from below, saw that it was none other than Justin. His eyes were bloodshot, and even under the party lights, he looked pale. "I don't know what you freaks put in those bottles, but you're going to regret the day you were _born_."

Robot rushed in just as Justin pulled back an arm to wallop Cubey in the face. "Stop!" he shouted, extending his arms in front of his friend. "This has all been a terrible misunderstanding!"

"What are you doing, dude?!" Anthony asked, storming over and taking Justin's shoulder. The dumb football player was swinging an open bottle in his hands, sloshing it onto the carpet as he waved his arms around. "Chill out before the stupid hostess finds out! We got the real stuff now!"

Clara's mouth dropped open, baffled by his idiocy. " _I'm_ the stupid hostess."

Anthony turned to Clara and flashed her a grin, which immediately dissolved. "Oh..." He rubbed his sweaty palms on his pants, and then thrust out a hand. "Nice... to meet... you."

Clara gaped at him until Anthony finally, painfully, dropped his hand.

" _What_ was in the bottles?" Justin cut Clara off, yelling in Robot's face. "Tell me before I turn you into a napkin ring!"

"What bottles? What the hell is going on?" Clara demanded.

Without anything to say to either of them, Robot started to stammer. But before Justin's fist could go for the blow to either boy, his face twisted, and he dropped Cubey onto the ground. The vampire landed with a hard thud on the basement floor and watched on with Robot, Clara, Socks, and more than a dozen other witnesses as the handsome, heavily admired football player turned around, leaned over, and vomited a fountain of liquid onto a two foot long expanse of floor. A chorus of gagging and 'ew's emerged from the dense crowd as they parted out of the way of the puddle, and the hostess for whom the house belonged to looked mortified. Somehow, a few of the guests who considered this part of hardcore partying cheered Justin on as he puked even more.

"Sick!" Anthony pumped his fist into the air. "In a good way! OH... oh crap... not in a good way..." He smelled the air, and suddenly covered his mouth with his hands, gagging. He shoved through the crowds to get to the downstairs basement, vomit spilling out from his fingers and causing everyone in his path to move violently out of the way as the sickening smell of stomach bile cut through the air.

Robot turned to Cubey. "Cubey, what on earth was in those bottles?"

Cubey stammered. "Oh-I-I don't know-It-It was in a big jug my dad kept in the pantry. It looked clear, so I used it."

"What kind of jug?" asked Mitch.

"Well, it just had a white label on it, I-I didn't have time to read it," Cubey said, shaking. "It just smelled like rubbing alcohol."

"Hey, my dad had something like that once," one of the high school boys drunkenly interrupted, rubbing his stubbly chin with a mindless grin. "I think he got it when he was going in for a colonoscopy-you know, the treatment where the doctor puts a camera up your butt."

Robot and Mitch gave each other horrified looks. "Cubey, that sounds like polyethelene glycol!" Robot exclaimed, grabbing his antennas and yanking. "It's a liquid laxative!"

"WHAT!" Cubey shouted. "WHY WOULD HE KEEP THAT IN THE KITCHEN?!"

"Alright! I don't know where you all came from or what's going on, but this party is totally OVER!" Clara shouted. "I want everybody out of here. _Right. Now_!"

"Whatever," one of the highschool girls mentioned. "I was out of here anyway. Puke is so not cool."

"And I ain't getting near one of those bathrooms," said a high school boy.

With no one else to point the finger to, Clara marched to Cubey and shoved her pointer finger onto his nose, bending it backwards. "If this is all your fault, you'd better fix this. My father is a lawyer!"

"You can't scream at him!" Mitch came to Cubey's defense. "It's not his fault!"

"Then _who_ started all of this!" Clara demanded. Just then, someone tapped Clara on the shoulder, and she spun around, fire in her eyes. " _What_?" she spat at them.

"Chill out!" the girl shouted at her. "I was just gonna warn you that you're about to step on your pet snake. Whatever."

"Oh, that's so funny the second time!" Clara shouted at her. She turned to Cubey again. "And I'll bet the snake joke is your idea, too!"

"What snake joke?" Cubey asked, this time speaking genuinely. He looked to Mitch and Robot for help, but they were just as clueless.

"Quit acting stupid!" Clara started. But as she was about to unleash a ton of lawsuit threats of which she may or may not have been able to deliver, she felt something tickle her ankle. Her face drained of all its anger, and she took on a funny expression, like she needed to take care of a bad itch before she could continue ranting. She looked down to see what the sensation was. In the spotlight of one of the strobe lights was a relatively small, but very alive, red, black and yellow snake, curled around her cotton sock. It's head tipped up just in time to look Clara in the eyes, and on cue, Smiley flashed Ms. Doppler his very best trademark smirking tongue-wiggle.

* * *

"Well, so much for finishing this one before Halloween" - March 10th

There was so much to fix about this and the next two chapters, but I think it's ready. I got some great feedback about Robot being OOC in the last chapter about talking with a random stranger in the closet and disclosing all these personal thoughts. It made sense for me at the time because in the show, he would go off on rants and just talk to appliances, and at the time he would expect them to respond. As he would grow out if it, like his feelings of superiority, he would have the need to do the same, but to random people instead, because he knows at least they are actually listening/ can respond. But I guess this reason didn't cut it. I may edit the previous chapter later to have it where Robot is just talking to a dark closet with nobody there, but that doesn't make anymore sense to me. I do need him to have this moment where he comes out and talks to Shannon without knowing it's her, for this and the very next chapter. Otherwise, this ship is ready to sail. And begone-you've been in my for 3 months!

 **In this chapter, Shannon goes hunting for the loose snake before someone else finds it, and the boys deal with Justin and the football players going overboard with wrecking Clara's house when a new party crasher arrives to make everything worse.**

Comments/Criticism/Spam I don't care, say anything.

 _Whatever Happened to Robot Jones?_ © Greg Miller & Cartoon Network


	27. Exposed

A scream unlike any other sounded in the basement, louder than the music that had been playing before. Loud enough so that everybody in any part of the house could hear. At last there was not a soul in that basement who's attention wasn't already on the hostess.

And with a single five letter word for a reptile bouncing off the insulated walls, the cheerleading captain learned the true meaning of chaos. Clara was not the only one with a fear for snakes, and it didn't take seconds before the brainless, drunken partiers began panicking. Someone reached for the lights and yelled out that the bulb had been shattered. The girls who also feared snakes began jumping onto their boyfriends or various furniture to get away from the slithering threat. The young men with the same fear began grabbing random objects and smashing anything and everything that remotely looked like a snake-appliance cords were ripped out of the walls, streamers were torn down, skinny lamps were smashed. A couple of the larger boys began pushing back chairs and knocking over loaded book cases in order to find where the snake had disappeared to. Like a wildfire, the words "venomous" and "dangerous" began spreading beneath the screams by the few teens who were attempting to think rationally.

Like the diligent boyfriend he was, Timothy Morton pushed his way through the throng of partiers as one of the hunters. Though he wasn't the brightest kid academically, he was the only one to think to get on his hands and knees, which precisely resulted in him being the one to find the snake, curled in the corner of the dance floor, next to the back door. Trying to escape the chaos, the little snake had sought going outside, but the gap under the door was too small. Thus poor Smiley had nowhere to go. "I FOUND IT," he shouted. "Clara! I found it!"

"Hit it with something!" Clara shouted back, coming closer, but still keeping a distance. "Kill it!"

As the person to discover the snake and hold it in the corner, the rowdy partiers began cheering Socks on, one handing him a skinny, busted lamp, sharp on its ends. Socks eyed the lamp nervously as it occurred to him the great responsibility that was suddenly on his shoulders, and gulped as he looked down at the scaley creature. "Alright, here I go..."

"STOP!" came a voice from behind him. A hand landed on his shoulder, and another yanked the broken lamp from his hands. It was so sudden Socks didn't have time to react. "Don't kill it! It's not venomous, it can't hurt anyone!"

Low and behold, it was the masked Hockey Player in black. The screams died down as everyone watched the masked person stand in front of the balled up threat in the corner.

One of the high school boys chuckled. "Hey, it's Randy!"

"No it's not!" said another random highschooler, this one a girl. "It's obviously Mark Huberman!"

"I know that voice..." Robot started, startled to hear his companion from the rebooting port, A.K.A. the closet upstairs, speak.

Clara, on the other hand, knew exactly who the hockey player was from the moment she'd opened her mouth. " _I_ know that voice, too. Hold her!"

By the time the hockey masked killer realized she had put herself in the corner trying to protect the snake, it was far too late. Clara shoved Socks away and yanked the mask off her face, snapping the string in the process. "Ow!" the brunette shouted, rubbing her neck.

"Shannon!" Socks exclaimed.

" _Shannon_?!" Robot uttered, slack jawed.

"That was a _girl_ under there?" a random middle schooler asked.

At once, all of Clara's anger drained, and it was this sight that made her burst into hysterical laughter. "Well, well, well, looks like we found the _real_ snake!"

"You brought the snake in?" Socks asked.

Having no backup plan, no emergency explanation, Shannon just gaped at the boy who she used to consider a close friend. "Yes," she said, in a defeated exhale, stepping down to pick the snake up in her hands, and stuff it into the empty backpack, the hole patched with two layers of duck tape she had found earlier while searching the kitchen. "It's mine."

"But why?" asked Socks.

" _Why_?" Clara asked her boyfriend, snorting. "Why do you think?" After having been supremely embarrassed, she was more than happy to turn the humiliation onto someone else. "Supreme jealousy, that's all there is to it."

"I'm not jealous of you," Shannon said, feeling bolder as she spoke, zipping up the backpack. "I have some pretty strong feelings about you, but jealousy isn't one of them. Never was, never will be."

"Oh, sure," Clara said, rolling her eyes. "Just like that red haired pig that came up with this ' _hilarious'_ prank. Where is she, anyway? Hiding out in the corner somewhere?"

Shannon looked offended. "Pam? She has nothing to do with this!" She understood perfectly well why Clara would think this, given her history of being Pam's yes-woman. And maybe part of her annoyance was knowing how she was perceived wasn't entirely false. But she wasn't about to be discredited if she was going to take the fall for it. "She doesn't even know I'm here!"

"Riiight," Clara turned to a random spot in the crowd. "Well, if you're listening, Simon, you might wanna stop being a coward and stand up for your lackey."

"I told you, Pam isn't here!" Shannon snapped at her, yanking down the tight hood and letting her ponytail fall out. "And if she was, she would have come out by now!"

And as she said it, however, doubt knocked on the back of her head, like Smiley, who'd begun to thump against the side of her bag again. What _would_ Pam have done, if there was a chance to save Shannon from a situation like this? A dread overcame Shannon as she realized that people who had best friends shouldn't have to even question it.

Whether or not Clara had completely forgotten about the beer situation was unclear, as she focused all her attention on Shannon, the only conspirer against her party to have admitted to any wrong. "Well, guys, we've got the culprit red handed. What do you say we do with her?"

" _Do_ with her?" Robot asked, trying to talk over the crowd. But aside from Mitch and Cubey, who returned his surprised expression, nobody had heard him.

"Beat her up!" shouted one of the jocks from Polyneux-one of the only guy who looked terrified at the news of a snake on the lose. His suggestion was filled with anger at his own embarrassment of having looked like a wuss. "Women can vote, and they can get pounded too!"

"Nice plan," Clara said, shrugging the idea off. "But I don't feel like having my lawyer father deal with a bodily damage court case right now."

"Clara, you can't-" started Robot, but Cubey cut him off, covering Robot's mouth with his hand and shaking his head grimly.

"Make her eat my boogers!" shouted another boy in a shrill voice, this one looking young enough to be in sixth grade.

"What are you, five?" asked Clara, looking boggled by what she just heard. "Next!"

"He-he," giggled an overweight boy, "Make her get naked and cover her in peanut butter, and tape pictures of it all over the boy's bathroom."

" _Gross_!" shouted Shannon, finally protesting. She turned to Clara. "Can we get a suggestion from someone who's not a pervert?"

Clara rubbed her chin and 'hmm'ed. She turned to the crowd, who had begun to whisper among themselves. From beneath the whispers, a single word emerged, spreading like the word 'snake' had among shouts just a few minutes ago.

"Swirley?"

"Swirley?"

"Swirley!"

"Swirley!"

"Swirley!"

"SWIR _LEY_!"

"SWIRL- _LEY_! SWIRL- _LEY_! SWIRL- _LEY_!" The choice became unanimous as the partiers, middle and high school alike, began chanting the punishment.

Clara's lips curled into a grin. "Swirley, huh? A little old school, but..." she folded her arms and turned to Shannon. "... pretty fitting for the girl who ruined my toilets."

"Whoa-wait a second!" Shannon protested. "I didn't get the football players sick!"

"Then who did?" Clara asked.

"I don't know!" Her eyes found Robot's. Robot cringed and braced himself for the finger to be pointed his way. To his amazement, she dropped her eyes to the floor. "I... I really don't."

"Come to think of it," Justin pondered out loud, "It doesn't make sense why three nobodies would pull all of this together unless they had a problem with you, Clara." He glared at Shannon. "So you _did_ put all of this together, not that dipstick Cubey. Go figure. Never woudda figured a girl could be that smart."

Justin seized her by the shoulders so she couldn't move.

"It's like they say," Clara said to Shannon. "Sometimes you want to be a Sandy, and all the while you're just a Rizzo." She then pointed up the stairs and shouted, " _To the upstairs bathroom_!"

Cheers erupted from the crowds as chuncks of bodies began following Clara, Socks, and their captive Shannon as they dragged her up the stairs, to the first floor bathroom. Between a wall of teenagers, Robot, Cubey, and Mitch squeezed inside and hurried after them, with Robot pleading for them to 'cease and desist.'

As Robot didn't have a nose, he had no way of knowing the power of the smell that wafted from the room as they got closer, but for the reaction of those around him. The rowdy, drunken partiers began shrieking and gagging when Clara shoved the door open.

Even some of the jocks pulled their shirts over their nose. "Reminds me of taco day in the cafeteria, dude..." muttered one to his friend.

The bathroom was larger than one might expect for one outside the master bedroom-though considering the size of the home, it made sense. It was around thirty feet long and equally wide, and even had room for a full sized bath tub. But this didn't stop the rowdy teenagers from crushing each other inside, shoulders smashed against tile, arms shoving forward until not one more body could fit

Justin held Shannon at arms length from the toilet, which had its lid closed. The unspoken uncertainty about whether or not the toilet had even been flushed since it had last been used only amplified the dread.

All along, the mix of middle schoolers and high schoolers that had pushed their way close enough to the scene of the action, at this point virtually indistinguishable, continued the barbaric chant. "Swirley! Swirley! Swirley!"

Somehow, by luck of their smaller statue, Robot, Mitch and Cubey had squeezed through the bulk of the crowd with minimal effort. The result left Mitch and Cubey huffing from the rush, and Robot distractedly thinking of ways of moving the strongest bodies out of his way of getting to the front, short of actually throwing them across the room. His head darted back and forth, looking for nay-sayers, but not a single person in his earshot had an objection to the horror that was about to take place. "I don't understand, why are they encouraging this? Half of these people can't even know who Shannon is!"

"It's all a big joke to them!" Cubey rationalized. "There's nothing better than seeing someone else humiliated."

"Someone has to stop this!" Robot shouted, looking towards the back of the crowds for a sign of help. "Even Justin can't honestly believe she was behind everything! She doesn't deserve to be punished!"

As Robot spoke, the crowd suddenly drew quiet, save for some shill shrieking. The Frankenstein's Monster automaton extended his neck to see just above the heads, and watched as Clara opened the toilet lid. Off to the side, pressed so far to the side that his heels were pressing the back of the tub, Socks stood and watched. He looked dumbfounded, like he couldn't believe this was really happening.

Justin put one hand on the back of Shannon head, keeping a grip on her shoulder, and began pushing her forward.

"Wait! Stop." Clara shouted. And the bully obeyed, freezing in place, holding Shannon in what looked like a spine-breaking bend. Her lashes fluttered, and she looked at her boyfriend, and smiled. "Let Tim do it."

A collective gasp sprung up from the back of the crowd, and Socks Morton looked as if the world's worst stage fright had seized him. Even if a lot of these people had no idea who he was, the moment Clara looked at him, they knew who she was talking about.

Robot had only puked once before (he had actually never even heard of the term before he started attending Polyneux, and initially he'd been horrified of the idea of something inside a body coming back up through the mouth), but he suddenly felt the oil in his tank trying to come back up. Inches below him, having thrown their friend's name out there had made Mitch and Cubey outraged. "She _wouldn't_!" Cubey stammered.

"She _did_ ," Mitch confirmed, with the iciest voice he could muster.

Robot looked back at Socks, who's eyes were locked on Shannon. It looked like the two of them were trying to remember exactly who they were looking at. Shannon, with her hood down and her matted hair hanging in a loose pony tail, her dental apparatus miraculously disappeared, looked nothing like the homely girl who walked around Polyneux and carried that audible half rubber, half metal stride with her. Meanwhile, Timothy was a far cry from the boy once simply better known as Socks, with his greasy black hair and too-tight clothing. Robot had never seen him look so conflicted in the years that he'd known him. His blue eyes eventually shifted to Clara, and then back at Shannon, like he was trying to decide who really mattered more to him. Clara, the girl who made him popular for once, who gave him his first kiss. Or Shannon, the girl he'd known for the better half of his life. The girl next door.

Robot couldn't believe it... but for the slightest moment, he wasn't entirely sure he wanted Socks to refuse.

"I-" Socks started, with a catch at the end that made it sound like he needed to clear his throat. "I... "

 _Wait, what am I thinking?_ Robot thought, shaking his head violently. _Of course I don't want him to do this!_ _Shannon's not just my first love, she's my friend! I can't let Clara do this to Socks! I can't let her control him!  
_  
 _But then again, how much is she really controlling him-  
_  
Suddenly, a loud beep emitted from Robot's head, and for two seconds, he was deaf to the world.

Before his eyes, a massive wall of tiny coding scrawled upwards, blinding him to the world around him-his own coding. Mental overload had broke the processes that separated his normal sense of vision from text screens he wasn't supposed to see unless he willingly called upon them.

After the brief scrawl of the code wall, his vision went black, and a simple error appeared in the middle of his line of vision.

 ** _COGNITIVE ERROR 6709: Major conflict of existing data. More data required to make a confident conclusion pertaining to a current situation._**

 _Aagh, but there's no time!_ Robot shouted internally, forcing the coding away as fast as possible so he could see again. It wasn't the first time something like this had happened, but these errors had only started when Robot had begun middle school, and had only grown more frequent, and scary in their severeness. It made sense, as the world itself had become a lot more complicated the more he mingled with humans. But any error that was serious enough to interrupt his sight and vision could pose a threat to his health, and was not supposed to be ignored, even though he'd rather not tell his parents about them.

When his vision returned to normal, the first thing he noticed was that Socks had moved closer to Shannon, but Clara's smile having turned to a scowl, this time directed at Socks. "What are you waiting for? This is payback for what she did to you at the restaurant!"

"Yeah, but-" Socks started, his hands outstretched to take Shannon from the bully's hands, but his fingers would not wrap around her, his mouth hanging open. If he had an argument for why he wasn't about to go through with this, it would not manifest as spoken words.

"Here, let me help you," Justin said, letting go and bending down to grab Shannon by the ankles. The brief moment of silence from Shannon had turned into terrified shrieks as she was suddenly picked up off her feet, and quickly turned upside down. The scrunchie holding her hair back let go and fell into the toilet with neither a sound nor a splash, and the ends of her now loose hair hung over the bowl, inches from the seat. "All you gotta do his push her head in."

The only thing readable on Socks's face now was trepidation. He kept his arms out, as if he was about to accept the grasp of something highly explosive, but would not touch. Robot desperately tried to think of way out of this situation for both of them, but nothing came. Even if Socks managed to get Shannon away and into his own arms, there was a wall of teenagers forty feet back behind them, clogging the exit. And as knowledge of the impending swirley continued to spread, the wall front of the bathroom continued to become denser. The only way out was through a small vent in the wall above the toilet that not even Robot could fit his head through.

The automaton pitied his best friend for being put in this situation. There really was no way out of this.

 _Unless..._

Robot eyed Shannon's backpack on the floor by the toilet, the snake presumably still tucked inside. In front of him was a jock that was too big to move without injuring him. The frustration was bad, but not enough. Robot closed his eyes and focused his mental energy on what it felt like when he first began suspecting Socks and Shannon were more than friends, pushing away any rational doubts.

 _My friend... my best friend... a human... all along..._

His body shivered with the anger, like swallowing a glass of plain lemon juice. And then he felt it: the hotness behind his eyes. When his lids parted, a tiny ray of red spilled from his pupils and hit the ankles of the boy in front of him. The sudden jolt of pain caused the moose to shout and shove away both smaller people that were on his sides. That's when Robot made his move. He shoved aside an arm and a leg, for whom he didn't even know they belonged to, and ran to the backpack, holding it up in front of him, his arms up in the air before the crowd. "Cease and desist! Hold everything!"

Sure enough, the attention switched from Socks and Clara and their captive, to the makeup wearing automaton in front of them. But right away, the cheerleader was ready to take it back. "Cute, Robot. What is this, some valliant effort to save your girlfriend?"

For whatever reason, either the insinuation that he and Shannon were ever a couple, or how badly he wanted that to be true at some point, made him furious. "Shannon and I are not together! We never have been! I'm not even sure we're friends at this point. But I know that I am not going to let her take the fault for something she didn't do!" He looked at Clara, the story tumbling out as words as fast as he could process it. "Clara, I don't know what Shannon was doing here, but she wasn't the one who let the snake in. It was me. _I_ was the one who ruined your party. This snake was mine, I got it from a pet shop. Shannon was just..." he thought hard, trying to keep a straight face as he did so "... lying for me, to protect me. She didn't want Socks and I to have bad blood."

"Robot, what are you doing?" asked Socks in a hushed whisper. "Are you crazy? Don't be making stuff up like that!"

"I'm not making it up," Robot said, looking frank in his expression. "I am a robot, bound to true statements and true statements only."

Whispers began to spring up. To anyone who hadn't known Robot very long, the idea of a robot being unable to lie sounded reasonable. But what surprised Robot was that Socks, who knew Robot better than anybody, looked as if he wasn't sure if Robot was lying about being able to lie. _Come on, Socks!_ Robot pleaded mentally, as he stared him in the eyes. _You know me!  
_  
"Socks, Shannon may owe you an apology for the incident at the restaurant," Robot went on, "But she hasn't done anything to Clara. Don't let her tell you to do this to her!"

"But-" Socks started.

"Hush," Clara interrupted, putting a finger out. She stared so intensely and threateningly into Robot's eyes that he felt his defense mode nearly kick in, and he had to shut it off. "And the beer?" Clara asked, with a raised eyebrow.

"I invited Justin and the football players to the party with the promise of beer. I didn't know they'd invite all these other people."

Clara folded her arms across her chest. While her house remained wrecked, and the reputation of her cool nature ruined, she seemed to be enjoying the moment to digest these revelations. "Interesting. So, Mr. Jones, may I ask why it is that you would go through all of this after I kindly let you into my home?"

The absolute coldness in her voice could've given Robot goosebumps-if he could have them. Thankfully, as long as he focused on the things that were frustrating him lately, he could keep his hardened expression. "You took my best friend from me," Robot said, being sure his defense was partially true. When he saw how different Socks looked that night, and the uncertainty in his eyes about Robot's ability to lie, he knew it was. "And more than that, everybody is sick of your polarizing popularity. You have turned Polyneux into a battleground, where you are either on one side or the other. I suppose that I thought that if you weren't so popular anymore, things would go back to normal."

And then, somehow, more voices sprung up. Some, of course, calling the confession crock-which it was. But some actually agreed with what Robot was saying. Not feverishly, but with general nods.

"Bolt head speaks the truth," someone called.

"Yeah..." called another.

Justin, who'd held Shannon upside down for almost five minutes at this point slowly turned the girl right side up, and set her down on woozy feet. Finally, it was then that he took his hands off of her. The girl cried out quietly in shock of touching earth again, and without the bully's support, swayed back and forth and fearfully grabbed onto the towel rack on the wall until the blood rushed down from her head. "Now _that_ makes sense," Justin grinned.

Robot should have stopped here. But there was another rant brewing inside, and he couldn't stop now. Not while his voice box was warmed up, and the words were coming out like gumballs from a machine with a broken door. "And I can't believe you!" he said, turning to Socks and pointing at his nose. "Insinuating that Shannon's changed since her leg was amputated is one thing, but the least you could have done for one of your oldest friends is prevent another girl from bullying her! If I were in her boots, would you have dunked my head in the toilet, too?"

Socks was stammering uncontrollably. Justin, who wasn't, however, decided to speak for him. "Nobody said we _can't_ swirley the robot..."

"Yeah! Let's do it!" chimed in Cali.

"But that'll _kill_ him!" Shannon shouted. "You can't do that!"

" _Everybody, shut up for a second_!" Clara said. "What's that noise?"

The bathroom became quiet, and behind the trickle of voices from downstairs, and some rampant foot falls of members of the crowd by the bathroom disappearing, someone was shouting. A man. A very, very angry man. A very angry, mature man's voice had entered the home, growing louder with every second.

And as more people began trickling away from the wall in front of the bathroom and making a run for it, Clara Doppler turned white as a ghost. "No..."

Even quicker than they'd found their way inside, the partiers, middle and high school, invited and not, began fleeing. Downstairs, the door in the corner of the dance room leading out to the backyard had been flung open. The other door in the laundry room, previously blocked by a table, had been shoved aside. Some of the kids who were too drunk or nervous to think clearly ran down the stairs-some stumbling and rolling downwards-in droves to get out of the home. Debris from cups, plates, streamers, and various Halloween decorations, as well as emptied, smashed, spilled, and crushed beer bottles, were kicked and tripped over in the wake of over a hundred bodies starting to abandon the Doppler home. On the first floor, another loud smash made it clear that a front window had been shattered to let out another crush of partiers.

Clara grabbed Socks by the sleeve and pulled him through the much thinner throng of bodies, but like Clara herself had had Shannon cornered just a minute ago, the cheerleader found herself trapped by the only people on the earth that could corner her in her own house. "Mother... Dad... you weren't supposed to be home until tomorrow."

"Clara. Clara Ruth-Eleanor Doppler," said the presumed Mrs. Doppler, looking utterly appalled. She was pudgy, but well dressed, with bleached hair ironed flat and cut to a precise line against her head. "What... how... what is going on?"

The man besides her was tall, with a strong, straight posture, and wearing a well ironed gray suit. His hair was only speckled gray on top of brown, but the eyes behind his glasses were heavily wrinkled. And every other teenager that remained in the doorway of that bathroom decided that their own father's worst rage face didn't look that bad. In a carefully articulated voice, her father answered, "I _think_ she had a party, Heather."

In years prior, fall had been mild up through the end of October. But not this time around. Halloween had gone out with severe winds and bitter cold. And sometime in the early morning of November the first, snow had begun to fall.

Middle schoolers woke up on Monday to two feet of white stuff on the ground, and a demand from one or both of their parents to dawn their heavy jackets. It wasn't enough snow to cancel school, or even make a decent snowball. Just enough to be a pain. Making the morning wait for the school bus a sludgy, wet trial.

Autumn might as well have been over. In its place was winter, and a sense of emptiness among more than a few of Polyneux's reluctant students. But particularly, the group of four collectively responsible for the downfall of Clara Doppler's Halloween party. Mitch, Cubey, and Shannon.

But especially Robot Jones, the one who had taken full credit for the ordeal. The school day was a blur for him. He remembered drying off his wet feet in the bathroom, and hearing yet another condescending remark aimed at him in passing during one of McMcMc's lectures, but not a lot else.

His mind kept coming back to a single, painful truth that made everything else, good or bad, completely irrelevant.

Timothy Socks Morton, the guy who went out of his way to take Robot under his wing, and make him feel welcome here in this all human school just two years ago, was no longer his best friend. If only he had kept his mouth shut. If only he had just taken credit for trashing Clara's party, maybe their friendship could still be salvaged. But Robot had to go on that rant, had to tell Socks that his very first relationship with a girl was a sham. His head ached with the knowledge of a severe error in thought and action. At the time, Robot's emotions-his heart-told him it was exactly what a best friend should have done, but logic-his head, which only occurred to him after the fact, told him it was what a best friend should have _never_ done.

Socks and Robot hadn't so much as made eye contact since the party, and the mere thought of having to talk with him made Robot sick. What was he thinking? How could he think for even a second to put Socks through the kind of emptiness that falling out of love with Shannon was like for himself? It wasn't like he _wanted_ Socks to suffer.

Or... did he? The more involved with humans that he became, the more Robot found it difficult to understand some of his actions. Was he jealous of the blissful ignorance that Socks was feeling, wrapped up in Clara? Enough to want the charade to end?

No matter the answer, Robot regretted everything.

In the end, whoever took the credit for the disaster didn't matter. Clara had never been permitted to have the party in the first place, and had even thrown a number of smaller parties before this, after her parents had explicitly told her she wasn't allowed. Robot was free of liability for any damage because Clara had set herself up for the responsibility. But being totally free of trouble made Robot only feel worse.

Clara was in debt to her parents until the repairs for the house were paid for. And she was grounded until further notice from pretty much everything non school related. She even had to fight to even keep her Cheerleading duties, and the only reason her parents let her continue on with that was to keep up her extracurriculars, and stay on track for a good college.

As of what became of Paul and The Stink, nobody knew for sure. But Robot had caught the string of a rumor that despite Clara having to take full responsibility for the party, she'd told her parents about the high schoolers who'd brought the real alcohol, and her parents were considering tracking down witnesses to press charges against them for serving alcohol to minors. Of course, even if this was true, it would be hard to do, seeing as most of the known partiers took a pack of silence about who those two were. As the old saying goes, snitches get stitches.

Now that he was only allowed to see Clara during school, Socks spent any free moment of the day with her, making Robot's effort to avoid him pretty easy. If he had a moment alone with Socks, Robot wouldn't know what to say. 'Sorry' just didn't seem good enough. Or specific enough.

By the following Saturday, the snow had partly melted, but the sun had hid behind the clouds too early, leaving patches of ice and dirty snow along the wet sidewalks. On his way to the factory, Robot realized his route was only three blocks away from the Doppler house. Though he should have, with every good notion, stayed as far away as possible, Robot couldn't resist seeing the damage left by the high schoolers in daylight hours.

He made sure to stay on the other side of the street as he approached. Though it was as obvious as it had been Halloween night that this house was more expensive than the ones around it, with the sun out, and with the soggy roof dripping away its blanket of snow, it somehow wasn't as impressive.

Curiosity compelled him to slow down, and by the time he was directly across, his feet had ceased movement.

The decorations Clara and Socks had put up were long gone, but there were still traces of unflattering streamers and what looked like toilet paper, clinging like wet lumps to the gutters and the tree in the backyard. The mailbox had a massive dent in it, a board had been put up behind the broken front room window, and Robot noticed a red party cup hiding under the steps that had been missed during the first attempt to clean up the property.

A person exited the house just then, carrying a bag of what Robot guessed was salt for the driveway. At first, Robot saw the gray man's jacket on the tall figure and assumed it was Clara's dad. His tank nearly jumped up to his throat when the figure turned around and appeared to be none other than Clara Doppler herself.

They made eye contact almost immediately, and after scowling, Clara continued carrying the bag down the steps, her feet nearly giving way under a slick spot. She yelped and let go of the bag, grabbing the railing as Robot hurried across the empty street on pure instinctive programming.

Clara didn't need help, and she made so very clear as she hurriedly made her way back down the rest of the steps and glared at the automaton, stopping him just inches after crossing the curb. "Why don't you just take a picture, Jones?" she shouted in his face. "It'll last longer!"

Robot was unshaken by the insult. In fact, his gaze was more fixed than ever before. "Does it appear that I enjoy your misery?" he asked, referring to his expression.

She looked away from him, probably ashamed to admit she was wrong. "Of course not," she muttered, reaching down to grab the bag and hoist it upwards. "You're not the type. Unlike your weird little friends, and that psychopath snake queen you call a girlfriend."

Steam rose up from Robot's head. "We are _not_ dating," he said, for the upteenth time. "As a matter of fact, we never did, and thank you for reminding me, yet again." He didn't know why _this_ is what set him off. He was tired of trying to explain complicated emotions he could barely understand for himself. "And... hold on, you knew that wrecking the party was Mitch and Cubey's idea?"

Clara snorted, ripping open the bag. "I get straight 'A's too, Mr. 'I'm the only smart person at this school'!" she said in a low, mocking monotone. "You're the goodie-est Goodie Two-Shoes at Polyneux-aside from that Mikey Schmitt kid. There's no way that this was your idea. You were just along for the ride."

Robot was floored, watching her in wide-eyed surprise as she went about sprinkling salt on the front walk of her house as if he wasn't even there. He never expected Clara to have made that revelation. "But if you knew, why didn't you say anything?"

"It's that obvious?" she said, looking up and dropping the cup she was used to spreading the salt. "You become my public enemy number one, suddenly I get more support. Did you forget we're at war here? The staff has two months to pick a Valedictorian, and not only am I going to play up the victim card, but your hands are as red as your chest paint."

It was like the person standing in front of Robot Jones wasn't who he thought she was anymore. His digital roster almost brought into question if he was still speaking with Clara Doppler.

At once, he felt a conflict of emotions. Frustration... and pity. "Clara, I am just a robot. But I have input a lot of data during my two and a half years observing the rituals of the humans. In your time at Polyneux, did it ever occur to you that junior high school is about more than acquiring accolades?" He spoke with the most convicted voice he could muster. "That perhaps you would be so much happier if you made friends by being friendly, instead of treating them like alliances?"

" _Earth! To Robot!_ " She spun on her heel and gave him her most aggressive expression. "Everything is about alliances! And accolades! Most people don't want to admit it because they don't have the guts to fight for those things, but that's what separates the winners from the losers! You really think this stuff ends when you leave junior high? We're talking about _life_ here, Robot Jones! You're either naive to it, or you're in denial!"

Robot slowly shook his head, his face setting on determination, rather than anger. "I don't believe that," he told her, calmly. "Not for one second."

"Well, you can believe what you want." She pointed to her house. "You know how much that place cost my parents? Two million. _Million_ , Robot. And you don't think they got that much money by thinking the way you do, do you?"

Robot gazed up at her house but said nothing. While it was true that such wealth wasn't common among the most honest people, could he really believe Clara's parents operated on the same mentality that made Clara...?

... that made Clara the most popular girl in school.

Nauseated, Robot turned and began walking away. He was already two houses away when Clara found something else to throw at him. "You'll wake up eventually, Robot! I guarantee it!"

Hearing her shrill voice shout at him gave Robot's footsteps a boost, and soon, he was sprinting the rest of the way down the street. By the time he could turn around and Clara's house was long out of eye shot, he allowed himself to slow down.

What had started off as honest pity for Clara that made him stop at her house turned into a revelation that challenged everything he thought he learned about the way the world worked. He knew that oftentimes, the charming and beautiful people had the upper hand-such was evident when Finkman made himself the most popular robot in school in the short time he was here. And he knew that sometimes cheaters won, thinking about how the Yogmans got away with sabotaging Robot's cube during the Wonder Cube Cube-Off-something he only learned about days after the fact, after investigating the cube that he had tried to no avail to solve. Of course, by then, it was too late, and even if Robot could make McMcMc care that he'd been cheated, there was no way to compensate him for not having got to be on TV.

He also knew that sometimes adults could be children, in the proverbial sense that they needed to feel like they were better than others, and in some instances, even put kids down who correctly challenged them in the process.

But learning these hard facts about life weren't enough to make Robot change the outlook with which he looked upon the world. If anything, they made him more determined to be anything else _but_ like these people. And even if those adjustments to his character made him a so-called 'goody-two-shoes', so be it. Until last week, he may have been the most unpopular boy in school after Mikey Schmitt, but at least he was happy.

But being the goody-two-shoes meant taking all the blame for sabotaging Clara's party so that Mitch and Cubey wouldn't face the consequences. Now his best friend hated him, and half the school that already distrusted him for being a robot now had a real reason to give him the cold shoulder. How long before playing the good guy took away the last of his happiness?

How long before doing the right thing resulted in him being all alone?

He thought about this the whole rest of the walk to the factory, feeling loneliness in every step.

But by Monday morning, a development had occurred that drastically swung things in Robot's favor.

Jeffery Greber was just an average kid, who had an average memory, and made average mistakes. However, being the editor-in-chief of the schools' newspaper gave him more responsibility than the typical student. And while the teacher in charge, Mrs. Raincoat, had reminded him a dozen times not to leave the printing room unlocked, Jeffery had the habit of forgetting anyway. And after a long night in final editing Friday night, Jeffery had gone home, leaving the door unlocked once again. Thinking nothing of this, as the entire school was locked up for the weekend, he just left himself a mental note to get to school early and lock up before Raincoat saw his mistake on Monday morning.

However, when Jeffery hurried down the empty hallways to the printing room, he was slack jawed to discover that this month's edition of _The Gab_ was not only complete, but had been printed a day ahead of schedule.

And had been stuffed into the slot of the locker of every student in the entire school who'd otherwise be reluctant to even acknowledge the paper existed. Five thousand plus copies, right at eye level.

And all it took for Jeffery to find out why was to turn to the last page of the newspaper. Whereas the rest of it had been left exactly as he'd seen it on Friday night, the Opinion section, which took up the space of the entire last interior page, had been crudely photocopied over by a full page, plain text, typewriter-written letter, with this header:

 **OPINIONS**

 **Bolt Head Speaks the Truth: A Minority Opinion of Polyneux's Candidates for Valedictorian**

 **A letter by Andrew G. Fields**

* * *

 ** _End of Part 2._**

* * *

The time has come for part 2 to draw to a close. We're getting back to the Andy mystery now, and the tensions between the kids is getting more intense. Hope it was worth the stupidly long wait. Comments criticism, say anything. Leave memes.

 **In this chapter, the party goes barbaric as the hostess corners the snake, and the one who brought it. Later on, Robot has an eye opening one on one conversation with Clara Doppler that threatens the optimism he has approached humanity with as of late.**

 _Whatever Happened to Robot Jones?_ © Greg Miller & Cartoon Network


	28. Stick-E

**Part 3: Ghost Writer**

 **Prologue: Indestructible Girls**

* * *

Donna Crowe was just seven years old the first time she saw a glass-winged butterfly in person.

Before that, there were few things she remembered quite so vividly. Her first bike ride all by herself. The day her father yelled and stomped in a fit so loud he shook the house and make a clock fall off its flimsy little nail and shatter on the floor. The day her mother was wheeled away on a gurney, through the double doors of the remote island hospital, never to stand back up again.

Her father had taken her on many trips in her childhood. Later in life, Crowe would report that he had the habit of putting aside a savings from the modest profits of his business to put forth in his family's interest, including the broadening of his only daughter's education and experiences. In reality, the "modest" Crowe named textiles business was far more well off than was reported for tax purposes, having a number of smaller but loyal business partners they dealt with under the table. So luxuries such as vacations were easily arranged.

Donna, who's mother had been a teacher and who herself had excelled at public school, had a fascination with the many basic types of animals in the world. Cats and dogs, monkey and elephants, and even more complicated animals, like platypuses and the extinct woolly mammoths. And all in all, Donna herself had a general neutrality towards animals. Even the yearly school trip to the zoo were bores.

But Donna had never heard of a glass butterfly until she saw one for herself.  
The year after Amelia Crowe was declared dead, and Donna had lost her arm, Earl Crowe took his daughter to Mexico during her break from school. She was walking alone through a green field, up close to a brush of flowers, when her eyes caught what looked like tiny brown hairs that quivered ever so slightly in the breeze. Donna's head swiveled and she realized that she was looking at the veins of a butterfly, and that between the brown borders of its wings were cells that were completely absent of color. It sat there calmly as she studied it from her position only a foot away. After an breathless full minute, the insect must have decided it didn't like that it was being stared at, and took off. And she watched it go far into the distance until it disappeared behind more leaves. She wasn't just interested in the creature, but amazed. It wasn't camouflaging itself against its background like a chameleon, but practically see-through at any state.

Being the little bookworm that she was, Donna carried her fascination with the butterfly into research as soon as she returned home to the states. What she found the most intriguing about this particular species, called the ' _greta oto_ ', was that despite it looking even more delicate than other butterflies, was that it had the strength to carry 40 times its own weight. How nature had managed a feat of beauty and strength like that was amazing. She had a rough understanding of a human body's durability and sometimes what it could handle being a miracle of science. But for Donna, she was obsessed with a creature that looked like glass, but was stronger than its counterparts.

For the next few years, she spent a lot of time looking at zoology books alongside studying mechanics and computers-an interest instilled in her by her father, and the desire to understand how her own metal arm worked. Before she was out of high school, she'd built herself an even better prosthetic arm than the one she'd carried through her formative years. This one more android like. With her knowledge of business and technological engineering, she was able to start up her own company at the age of twenty three. Because her father had already named his own textiles company Crowe, she respected its integrety by naming the new company Lightoller, after a little known surviving officer on the Titanic.

At first, her company specialized in materials, specifically those related to cybornetics. Having been an amputee for most of her life, and casually mocked for it, she felt deeply for the cause of helping the prosthetically assisted, and those who's lives were dependent on cybornetic intervention, to fit in with the masses once again. Whereas other companies were beginning to pursue real life androids-robots that looked humanoid, Lightoller crafted intelligent skins that would adhere to metallic limbs and form a seamless bond where the real flesh began. The technology needed for these skins was abysmally expensive, and aside from prototypes, they had to be made to-order. But rich customers slowly began to trickle in, and Lightoller soon began making a profit.

With this money, Donna extended the company's interests to include sleek-looking service robots that would brandish their company name. These robots could perform basic house hold tasks-doing the dishes, vacuuming, dusting, attending to messes made by children, etc. But unlike JNZ models that could boast doing a multitude of tasks at a more affordable price, Lightoller's house robots were also gifted in their abilities to perform more tasks than the standard robot, but looked better doing it. They had a sort of grace that humans typically couldn't put a word to, but that made them more appealing to be around. Not to mention their parts were all rounded and smooth, and stayed cool to the touch so they could be around small children without worry of being cut or burned.

The material that went into making the miraculous crystal unit was not found by accident. All throughout high school, Donna wanted nothing more than to find the right minerals to create a truly indestructible glass. Outwardly, her company's motivation towards this particular goal was modest: Imagine a world where windshields never shattered in accidents. Where windows could stop a bullet-could stop _10_ bullets without a scratch. Where a C4 explosion could be contained within a room of windows. It was a goal that would benefit many people, and make some slob filthy rich, if they actually found out what material that would be. But to Donna, the search for unbreakable glass was far more personal.

Whenever her team thought they'd discovered a good mineral mixture, Donna had her scientists pour it into a hollow mold to test its durability. Unfortunately, though most of the mixtures held up through intense brute force tests, they tended to break apart when applied with slow, even pressure.

After four trips to Africa, Donna was extremely impatient.

The poor scientist had barely cracked open the molding of this trip's material mixture when she reached over the younger woman's head and snatched the transparent sphere from her hands. Two other scientists barely ducked in time as the burning hot object flew across their heads and hit the nearest wall.

There stood Donna Crowe, seething in her dark, cold laboratory. A queen without a victory. But when a male technician returned the sphere kindly to his boss's hand, it didn't even bare a scratch.

This was it. She knew even before they ran the pressure tests. Four thousand pounds of straight air pressure in the compression chamber, and the sphere remained intact. She could barely contain her excitement as the weeks dragged on and they were finally unleashing a design for an android that would make use of the material. She did the blueprints herself, and only she knew what had inspired the anatomically correct figure, though anybody who walked into her office and took a look around could figure it out.

On her mantel was a photograph of a young woman taken sometime in the mid 1950s, her hair pulled into a loose auburn bun. Amelia. A woman Crowe considered far more beautiful and pure than herself. The only woman, Crowe thought, that was fit to model the most beautiful android in the world.

Her own mother, Amelia Crowe.

Robot Jones had every right to feel as intimidated of Donna Crowe as he was.

His new friend and confidant, Crystal, disclosed a lot of Donna's past to him. Not all that she knew, including a very unpleasant truth that, if let out, could ruin her life, but enough to secure the idea in Robot that Crowe was not to be trusted.

However, there were incidents in Crowe's past that even Crystal was unaware of. Stories so unpleasant, they would make her question her own goodness, by the very extension that she was Crowe's creation.

In all the time that Crystal spent getting to know Crowe, nothing was clearer about her mistress than the idea that Crowe was proud of her independence. Having built her company up almost entirely single handedly (both literally and figuratively) Donna loomed over her accomplishments like the company was every bit her child as was Crystal. And in that sense, she was a single mother, and a staunchly proud one at that.

So it had only once occurred Crystal what it would have been like if her creator had ever gotten married, as other humans did. She wasn't even entirely sure Ms. Donna was capable of feeling affection for anybody, if love was even too strong a word for that. She was a woman of strict business, who didn't care for making herself available for something as frivolous as going out for fun, including on dates with men.

But in fact, long before Crystal's creation, in her highschool days, Donna Crowe had pried her nose out of her books long enough to notice one young man in particular. His name was Miles Bryant, and his father was as wealthy as her own. Coming to school in pressed clothes, looking like a snapshot of a student who would've attended that school twenty years prior. Fairly handsome, not particularly muscular or fat, with a crew cut.

At first, Donna thought nothing of this young man. Handsome was an opinion of people who looked up long enough to really notice someone, of which she had not done for anybody since she started high school. And it wasn't like her stupid female classmates to throw around compliments towards any boy who didn't scoff at them. What Donna knew of Miles was that he was a regular boy with a decent set of manners. She had no time for boys and their manners.

What she would have known, if she had only looked up, was that Miles was sure checking her out. Jane Morgan, who was the closest thing Donna had to a friend, commented that Donna quite clearly had an admirer. However, no-nonsense as she was, young Ms. Crowe threw this information into the trash along with her half-eaten apple from lunch. She simply didn't care.

The first time she interacted one on one with Miles was soon after Winter break into their senior year, while they had been paired up for an in class assignment in English. Donna was impersonal, but not antisocial. Like her father, she was endowed with a grace for conversation when it was necessary. And when their interaction seemed to have gone smoothly, that's when he asked her out on a date. The question took Donna so aback that she first asked like she'd walked right into a trap. But when Miles insisted he only had the intention of getting to know her better, Donna accepted. Skeptical or not, it would be strange to keep pushing men away forever. And besides, now that she had looked him in the face, she could admit it: He was cute.

Their first date had been something else. It was storming, and Miles only had one umbrella in his car that they had to share while walking about the town. Donna had never experienced what it was like to stay so close to a boy for this long. She didn't exactly hate it. And when the date was over, he gave her the umbrella and walked himself from her doorstep to his car, getting soaked in the process. The image of his wet hair, plastered to his forehead, as he smiled at her that one last time from the driveway below was one that Donna Crowe would never forget.

This was the point she started dreaming.

Over the next few months, they saw each other occasionally outside of school. Sometimes they did the usual date activities, like going to the movies, sports events, and a bowling alley. Other times, they took advantage of their wealthy upbringing, visiting her fathers home with a pool so that he could show off his swimming talent, and his father's ranch-style estate, where she road her first horse. But Donna filled every remaining moment with fantasies of the future. From where they would host their wedding, to what dress she would wear. In all that time, she didn't give much a thought about her career goals. For half a semester, Donna Crowe dropped her books completely and let herself become a typical teenage girl.

She had even visited bridal shops and asked to see the gloves that would accompany a lovely dress. She found exactly the pair she would use, to cover up her still unsightly metal arm. She couldn't wait for the day that she could wear these, and forget the misery in her formative years. She convinced herself that marrying Miles would be the turning point her life had been begging for. That becoming Mrs. Bryant would replace the humanity she felt she lost, when her life went wrong.

She purchased the gloves that day, deciding to put them away for safekeeping, tucked into her underwear drawer. She'd worry about the dress later, when he proposed. But she needed a piece of the outfit now. Something she could hold onto.

It was at this point that Donna made her mistake. She felt close enough to Miles that she did the unthinkable and began telling this boy everything about herself. How she lost her mother, how her father lied about the wealth of his business. How she felt being an amputee. And he listened intensely. To open up like this was ripping off her armor and making herself vulnerable.

And yet, she didn't cry through any of this. Her voice didn't even crack, not once. She said everything with such vivid detail and such frankness that it seemed to make Miles uncomfortable. He commented that he'd never thought by looking at her that she was holding back so much. Donna shrugged at this, saying she had gotten good at hiding it. When she asked Miles however to tell him about himself, the boy didn't have much to say. Aside from lying to his parents about his little brother breaking a thousand dollar vase when he was a child, there was nothing to clear the air about.

And from that moment on, the pair felt disproportionate.

Near the end of their senior year, Donna turned eighteen, and she was expecting him to pop the question soon, if not when they graduated. Not that she needed to-she was ready enough to drop out of school as soon as he got down on his knee and said those four magical words. A diploma meant little to Mrs. Miles Bryant.

Unfortunately for Donna, Miles did intend on having a wife, but it was not her. Days before they were set to graduate, the boy pulled her aside, in a far off place on a beautiful, sun-shiny spot on their high school campus that would have been perfect for a proposal, and told her their relationship was over. He insisted it had nothing to do with her, but by his tone of voice, it wasn't too convincing.

The world slowed to a stop. Donna stood here, feeling her flesh become as ridged as her metal arm. Miles begged her not to hold anything against him, and that he considered her a friend, but by that time, his voice had become background noise. Static drowned out everything he had to say, and whatever it meant. She vaguely remembered him walking away, leaving her standing there, all alone on the bright, optimistic campus field.

She better remembered, however, how every step he took further away made him resemble an ant. No. A maggot. A pasty white maggot in a rich man's suit. She remembered the flicker of fear on his face every time he looked over his shoulder to see her again.

Fearful maggot.

Easily squashed maggot.

Like whiplash, Donna thrust herself back into her books, lodging herself so deep into the text to the point where she could forget her body and soul residing outside. She finished up her schooling and even received honors, even though she hadn't been as focused on her grades for the past few months.

While walking up to the stage to receive her diploma-the thing she almost foolishly threw away-she looked into the audience and saw Miles holding the hands of a girl in the seat right next to him. She was stunning-bleach blond hair, thick and full, tumbling down her back. Wide set eyes. Capped off with a blissfully ignorant smile, like pain itself didn't exist in her little world.

Reality hit Donna so hard, the wind escaped her lungs. And for a second, she couldn't breathe. Miles, the boy she'd confided nearly all of her deepest, darkest secrets to, had been looking at other girls this whole time. And when Donna had opened up to him, he'd decided to go with a girl who was less complicated.

Simple maggot.

The breakup had given her the boldness to move away for college and dive right into her plans for a company. Her work ethic was never stronger, as she did everything in her power to eliminate unnecessary social interaction. She was ever cool and collected in conversation when necessary, so much so that you'd never know she was completely and utterly heartbroken. Which made her the perfect entrepreneur.

It wasn't long before Lightoller was producing some of its first showroom models-prosthetics as well as simple robotics. While attending a Christmas party a few years after her college graduation, she reunited with Jane Morgan-now Mrs. Freddy Korhonen. It was such a pleasant, enough that it made Donna, who was only a social drinker, down her wine glass at once.

Even more pleasant was the news Jane had for Donna. Apparently, someone Jane worked with knew what had become of Miles Bryant following high school. That the girl Donna had seen him with at their graduation was, in fact, the one Miles intended on marrying, and was now Jane's coworker's cosmetic saleswoman. He proposed the first year into college, and Miles had opened up a fairly successful business of his own.

"But apparently, not everything is going so well," Jane told her. "You know how it is with couples."

Donna, who was listening intensely, raised an eyebrow ever slightly. "How so?" she asked, in the faintest, buttery voice.

"Well, they've been trying to have a baby for years. But it just never seems to work for them. I imagine it's only a matter of time though."

Ms. Crowe tapped the side of her wineglass thoughtfully. "That's a shame," she said, sounding disinterested. "I want to send them my best wishes. Do you suppose your coworker knows when she's going to be hosting her next makeup party?"

Though the request was odd, Jane went onto give Donna her coworker's phone number. From there, she found out that Mrs. Bryant was going to be hosting her next party in a few weeks, and put in a letter RSVP so that she could attend.

Over three parties, Donna got to know Mrs. Bryant very well. And as her husband was never around for her makeup sales parties, Donna never had to worry about a wary Miles wondering what she was doing there. Ms. Crowe played the part of the doting, caring friend well, buying some terrible makeup from her scam of a business that she would throw away later, and inquiring thoughtfully about her personal life. Because an easy life had made Miles' wife naive, it never occurred to her that something was amiss.

Eventually, Mrs. Bryant grew comfortable enough to confide in Donna the way that Donna had confided in Miles all those years ago. Though she and her husband wanted a child, she hadn't been able to carry one to term. Just recently, her doctor had concluded that, short of adopting, she was just never going to have a baby. She cried while explaining this to Donna, and in turn, Donna hugged her and told her that everything was going to be alright.

After this night, Donna Crowe stopped coming regularly to Mrs. Bryant's makeup parties. She was getting very invested in her business at this point and couldn't afford to keep making appearances. As she shifted more of her interest on robotics, Donna invested money in building simple androids. Her long term goal in doing this would be to give androids synthetic skin and make them as human like as possible. But her short term goal was nowhere near as lofty.

Donna only made one more trip back to the woman's house. A few months later, on Mrs. Bryant's birthday, early in the morning.

The couple had put in papers to adopt a child, and were expecting word back any day from the agency about being approved.

When Mrs. Bryant opened the door that warm, sunny morning, she was greeted by a wicker basket, sitting on her doorstep, covered by a pink blanket.

Miles entered the doorway to watch Mrs. Bryant, shaking with anticipation, picking up the wicker bed carefully in her hands, and cooing over it. Immediately, Miles felt a sense of something wrong, but did not have the foresight to take the basket from her before she lifted the blanket.

The quiet, suburban street, with it's identical box houses and their identical lawns, with their identical yellow flowers, was awoken by the sound of a woman screaming bloody murder.

Beneath the blanket was not an abandoned, human baby, but a life-sized android baby. Crowe had acquired the blueprints from a manufacturer in Europe, from which she roughly copied. Though it was anatomically correct and had synthetic skin like a real child, it was deliberately uncanny, and had flashing lights for eyes that lit up once it sensed movement. And instead of giggling, as a mechanical doll made for little girls might, when its artificial blue eye lights flashed on, it emitted a loud, piercing recording of a crow's screech.

 _CAW!_

 _CAW! CAW! CAW!_

Horrified, Mrs. Bryant dropped the android and the basket, and the cheap, non-sentient child-robot's head broke open upon impact with the concrete, spilling out tiny nuts and bolts everywhere. And yet it continued to caw at her in rage, the tape safe in the baby's belly. Mrs. Bryant's screaming devolved into sobs as she grabbed her stunned husband by the shirt and nearly tore it off, sinking to the ground.

From a careful distance, Donna was watching behind a tree. Her ruby lined lips stuck in a grin. She didn't move from her spot until Miles had dragged the inconsolable Mrs. Bryant back onto the house on her hands and knees and slammed the door.

She knew a cracked woman when she saw one. And Mrs. Bryant had just broken.

 _There's your complicated wife, maggot,_ she thought on her walk back to her vehicle, a rental that was parked covertly a mile away.

Years later, as Lightoller took off and Donna rose to fame, there would be rumor spread about an unstable woman she pushed over and sent to an asylum, over having done her a wrong long ago. All the details of these rumors would be incorrect, but those who correctly identified Donna for what she was could tell that she was capable of something so dark.

Especially automatons, who recognized her quiet cruelty towards their kind. But by the time Crystal herself was under Donna's control, it was too late. Her reputation of trust was more powerful than her reputation for revenge. Even Marvin Claymore, who was at her mercy, could sense this feeling of dread when she walked into the room. The quiet calculation, that false sense of friendliness masking a human monster, as she slowly absorbed your weaknesses, and turned them into your worst nightmare.

You don't mess with Donna Crowe.

From activation, Crystal Crowe's life was one failed expectation after another.

She couldn't have been a regular robot, built for an ordinary purpose, and able to do it. Vacuum a house. Take out the trash. Walk a dog. No, she was special. Very, very special. Ms. Donna never let a day go by where she didn't remind her.

Crystal was not only a miracle of science visually-a working automaton with skin so clear that one could see right through any section to the other side-but she was installed with the most sophisticated computing technology Crowe could get her hands on. She was the most complex thinking robot Lightoller had ever made, her brain having been in development long before she was ever activated. In that sense, Crystal felt older than her given age. As Crystal was to understand that robots were often not designed with a specific age in mind, she included the years her brain spent in the void of a supercomputer, being fed troves of information about the living world by the scientists specializing on her development, and often speaking to them in terminal text to develop the complexity of her thinking. With that included, she was just short of eleven years old. She had spent over a decade living in a supercomputer, unable to move or express herself beyond speech. She could read-which is how she grew to love books, and the more the scientists worked on her understanding of symbolism and reading between the lines, the more simple words radiated with her.

The day she was finally given a body should have been the day she experienced true freedom. Being able to see, hear, and speak in an an audible voice were gifts that not only humans took for granted, but robots as well. There was no string of words in her massive vocabulary for the joy she had, at the thought of becoming an automaton. But she was unaware of what kind of body she was going to be placed in.

Her mentality may have been around the age of a preteen, but the body she was given clearly suggested a female, around sixteen, maybe even older. A short one as well, since, as Crystal understood, Amelia had been quite petite. Crowe only reached average height thanks to her father's genes. But along with looking like the spitting image of her mother in youth, Crowe had expect Crystal to walk, talk, and generally behave more human-like than any robot her factory had ever produced. This was where the setbacks began. Crystal could walk fine on a pair of sharp heels, and there was certainly some grace in her walk that even some android manufacturers would envy, but she still lacked the little nuances in movement that made a human feel alive. And trying to code for those nuances was too difficult for current scientific capabilities, so Crowe had to make do with Crystal as she was.

But looking right and walking right wasn't where it ended. There was one more crucial detail to Crystal's design that would make or break Crowe's dream. Literally.

The world was on fire.

Crystal was propelling herself down a rocky dirt road. Her heels, which she couldn't remove, were catching on every stupid rock and pebble as she ran. She had stumbled and fallen to her knees so many times, she'd lost count. But being a robot, scrapes and scratches caused her no pain, so she got back up quickly after each tumble-at least as soon as her brain could process the shock of the fall-and kept running.

Why couldn't she have had flat feet? Surely a robot without fear of breaking her ankles could take advantage of the ability to run on high heels, but where was the logic in this design? What's the point of proving this can be done?

This was all she could think about as she pushed onwards, up the broken path around a mountain, overlooking the ruined city below.

People were running and screaming, miles below. Robot Code dictated that an automaton such as herself was to help human beings in a crisis at all cost, even her own life. But there was another more powerful code that was overriding it: The one that said to defend herself. This code flashed in neon yellow text in front of her eyes every time she heard a child scream far in the distance. Her existence was all that mattered here.

As the attacking tanks were leaving the city, they were firing up at the mountain. Crystal wasn't alone up here. Villagers were fleeing their burning huts, some running right past the strange transparent girl as they went. One knocked into her on the side and, in her shock, she stumbled again, chin hitting the dirt. A dust cloud flew up in her face, framing the chaos unfolding in front of her eyes. Humans, running in a blind panic into the blood red sunset, going higher and higher up into the mountain. It transfixed her, so much so that it delayed her sensory programming, and only woke when it began flashing that warning again. The voiceless order nagged on. Get up. _Get up!_

Groaning, Crystal obeyed the order, pushing herself to her knees, and then back onto her feet. She ran with the humans, her speed just barely matching theirs. If only she had flat feet, she could be faster. She knew she could be.

The road became narrower as the population of humans running for the summit of the mountain became denser. She had started her climb as the only moving figure in sight, and now she was just one of the crowd. A robot in a mass of people. It didn't matter. Death knocked on everybody's door in some form, and right now, it was coming for all of them.

When the last of the yellow sun was pulled beneath the horizon, Crystal finally reached the summit. The altitude should have made the temperature cooler, but her body was overheated from the extra exertion, and it felt like the sun was closer to the earth that it had ever been. It was so hot, she felt like her diamond-strong body would grow soft. Humans were arriving in droves, horrified when seeing that they could get no higher. Cannon blasts were rocking the lower portion of the mountain, and the tanks were getting closer.

It was a sight like in a novel: Humans, young and old, black and white, male and female, industrialized and earthy, piling together into an indistinguishable crowd of flesh.

There was nowhere to go.

She had misjudged how bad the situation was. She had felt like she was in a pack of gazelles, running from a family of cheetahs. At least in that situation, it was inevitable that some of the prey would trip and fall victim to their attackers, at least some would get away. Atop the mountain, there was only so much of a plateau to stand on. The more bodies that reached the top, the less room there was. Some of the humans were bigger than others, some fatter, some with more children. Tighter and tighter the bodies packed onto the top of the mountain until it finally happened: Bodies began falling from the cliff. Screams of terror and warning unleashed from the crowd, in English and Spanish and French and Native American tongue.

But now, atop the mountain, it was as clear as herself. She was just fly in a swarm, heading for the light.

Everybody was doomed.

It was then that Crystal decided that if she couldn't escape it, she wasn't going to run from it. She pushed her way back through the crowds, hands slipping on sweaty, sticky, sobbing human bodies for what felt like a mile, until she reached a clearing.

An explosive force shook the earth beneath her, sending Crystal wobbling, and up at the crowded top, more helpless humans of all backgrounds falling to their deaths. She dared to look over the edge, seeing tanks fire rounds onto the side of the mountain. If she didn't know any better, it was as if they were hunting or one particular person out of the lot. Closer they moved, firing every thirty seconds. Crystal watched on in paralyzing horror. What could she do? She was just an ornament.

Her glass heel slipped on a patch of muddy dirt-wet, probably from someone vomiting stomach bile out of panic-and once again, the already caked on dirty android feel-this time tumbling down a short cliff onto a ledge just two feet below. She grunted and pushed herself to her knees again, her computing brain getting use to the repetitive need of standing back up.

That was when she noticed something odd. The tanks were aiming lower at the mountain. The persons she supposed they wanted dead were all on the top. And that's when she saw it-the black void of the barrel of the canon, shifting dead center in her line of vision.

It was aimed at _her._ The only automaton for miles.

 _She_ had been the target. All of this destruction, this chaos, this waste of human life was because of _her._

All because she ran...

"Get up!"

 _Huh?_ Crystal's dazed mind tried to get back to speed.

She was laying on the ground, exactly where she'd fallen down in the dream, head against something hard-the wall, she realized, when she reached out.

The silver wall of the simulation room. The only part of Lightoller that wasn't blue.

It was just a simulation. Nothing more.

She rubbed the place where her head had hit the wall. Even if she couldn't feel physical pain, the impact had done a number on her brain. She could feel the components rattled. She was dazed, and confused, and the last thing she wanted was to be yelled at.

She quickly tried to remember what she'd done wrong when Crowe marched up to her, grabbing her by the shoulders, and hoisting her up, setting her on her feet with a harsh motion. "What was that?"

"What was... what?" asked Crystal.

"We've gone over this a hundred times," Crowe said through gritted teeth. "When faced with a force greater than yourself, you do not run. You do not hide. You stand up straight and head right for it. You were built to be indestructible, Crystal," she reminded her, with ice in her voice. "How are we ever suppose to prove it if you will not accept the blow of an attack?"

Crystal's head was still heavy, but she did her best to understand everything Crowe was saying. "B-but I got scared. The tanks, the people-"

"The people," Crowe said, "You were supposed to protect. In the event of a war, those inferior JNZ robots would never stand a chance to protect the people they're suppose to serve. But you-you're unbreakable. You can do everything they can't. You're the first of your kind built with this new material, but it's your responsibility to demonstrate it. When the day comes that you are revealed to the world, how am I supposed to show how much better you are if you won't _stand up and fight?_ "

Crystal's mouth hung open in shock. This hadn't been the first time Crystal had been dropped into an apocalyptic nightmare, only to find out it was only a simulation. The simulation wasn't meant to just test her strength-that could be tested, and had been tested, when Crystal was wide awake. And she had done very well, lifting weights as massive as half a ton above her head with no sweat (metaphorically speaking). Crystal never worried about her transparent skin cracking, because when she was awake, she was well aware of her own strength, and knew she was in no danger.

But when it came to the simulations, something always went wrong. Panic set in, and instead of listening to the Robotic Rules of Conduct which said to stand and serve humans, her programming was overruled by the want to protect herself. It was pure selfishness.

In the grand scheme of things, it was really Crowe who had frustrated herself. She had got what she wanted in terms of making a robot that thought like a human. Every time she was thrown into, at least what she thought was a life or death situation, Crystal's first thought was 'how do I escape?'

But in the android's mind, it was just another flaw. Another way she came short of what Crowe had imagined of her. Another way the paper version of her didn't match the one in real life.

It was the summer of 1987, and the Gala that would determine if Lightoller and JNZ would merge was still months away. But Crowe had been particularly hard on Crystal in the months leading to Crystal's move to JNZ. At this point, Crystal was the only one of two beings in the entire plant, human or machine, who was aware of what was being planned (besides Crowe herself).

Crystal had lived her entire existence within the windowless walls of the Lightoller factory-a perfect, giant blue marble under the shadow of an overpass at the edge of the city. Because of this, she'd never before seen a JNZ robot, only having known other Lightoller robots and workers. The only reason Crystal knew what the Lightoller factory itself looked like from the outside was having a digital layout of the property in her head.

Crystal had only seen JNZ models on TV. The factories were in the same region of the United States, so it made sense, seeing JNZ units in the background of local news reports sometimes. Crowe would sometimes use blueprints her staff had documented of broken, salvaged JNZ units in her meetings, to explain what about them she liked and wanted to duplicate, and what about them she wanted to do better. It was about 50/50.

This meant that for all of her existence, Crystal was being prepared to compete with a kind of robot that she only knew about, based on what was told to her. She could research all she wanted, but Crowe was determined to make her bias about Crystal's superiority sink in.

The problem was that it didn't. It was clear that for how much trash Crowe talked about JNZ that she feared them as a staunch competitor, and was putting much of her faith in impressing them-proving that there was something they could make that JNZ could never dream of-in Crystal herself.

Having an entire company's livelihood on her shoulders was too much. Combined with her mistress standing over her head, screaming at her to stand up and take the force of an entire war on her body, Crystal's shame reached a breaking point, and in a truly unrobotic display, she pushed Crowe aside, a ran from the simulation room.

The factory was dark, as it always was, with industrial lights carefully placed at far enough intervals that workers and units could see where they were and what they were doing, but enough to keep a cool, crisp atmosphere. It was running through the narrow, blue halls that Crystal decided for the first time that she hated the dark. She was sick of it. Even if exposure scared her, darkness was all she'd known. From her terminal text life to her automaton life, she couldn't escape the dark. Only in simulations had Crystal ever had a moment to experience the outside world, and it was always ruined by the dread of being killed.

She wanted more than anything to escape her dark prison and enter the sunlight, free of dread, free of everything.

The layout of the Lightoller factory would have seemed very strange to Crystal, if it wasn't all she knew. Since there wasn't enough room for most of the laboratories and work floors on the three levels of the globe shaped structure above ground, over half of the factory's floors were built in flood proof walls underground. Five floors underground total, actually. And the lower the level, the less occupied it tended to be.

Down the stairwell Crystal ran, busy hallways and beeping machinery echoing in her wake, door slam after door slam. Constantly running, those useless, unthinking machines were. Constantly trying to create data. Basic computers. None as sophisticated as Crystal. None that she could talk to, anyway. The shuffling of busy feet and business talk that even the stairwell doors couldn't block out became faint tickles on her hearing receptors, and then died away, the further down she went.

And then Crystal slipped into total darkness, the very lowest level not lit by any kind of industrial lights. Most of the factories main levels were underground, so the android approximated that she was at least a quarter mile beneath the earth's surface to have reached this floor. So dark that there wasn't even the faintest catch of reflection on the surface on her own skin, so she flipped on her night vision and continued walking down the narrow hallway.

Visitors to Lightoller Cybornetics, particularly journalists, might wonder why this floor only had one room-except that visitors were never allowed half this far. The plant had never received much media coverage in all of its existence, and Ms. Donna had given the pesky press enough footage of the first few floors to prove that, among their concerns, the plant was clean enough to eat off of the floors, the workers were well treated, and the robots it created were made with safety to the public in mind.

The elevator locked three floors above this lowest level, and a key was needed in the button panel to go any further. Likewise, a set of locking double doors on every other level made the staircase useless to randoms. Crystal had gotten so used to manipulating industrial locks with her powers that it didn't occur to her for the longest time just how many barricades Donna Crowe had created to keep most people on the higher levels. Even few but the most trusted workers were given the key to the last three floors, and it was very uncommon to see anybody down there, anyway.

But this wasn't just a workplace for Crystal. This was her home, and she treated it as such-no place was off limits.

The narrow hallway ended in a pale yellow outline of a door firmly shut, but with gaps large enough to expose the amount of light on the other side. Crystal felt herself slowing as she approached the door, out of respect. Running simply wasn't ladylike.

Gingerly, Crystal reached for the gold door handle-hideously ill-matching to the rest of the plant-and turned. The door pushed open with ease. After all, if the other half dozen steely locks hadn't kept intruders out, how would this flimsy wooden door stop them?

Light spilled out of the room, and Crystal's skin came alive with shine spots on every limb. The door swept into the room, over a plush shag carpet, making its opening practically silent.

The room, in stark contrast to the rest of the factory, was warmly lit, and well furnished. Instead of harsh white industrial lights that cut perfect circles into the floor in the hallways upstairs, this room was lit by regular, cheap house lamps in adjacent corners, sitting on regular wooden tables. There was a white couch, a rocking chair, and even a television set in the far left corner ceiling of the room, not unlike dentists offices would sometimes have although this one was turned off now.

This room may as well have been a step into another world, for all its leisurely comforts and eerie calmness. There was the odd placement of the television set and the lacking of signs of life that would have made a regular human question the room's occupant-no TV Guides or magazines or books thrown about, no socks or shoes kicked off in the corner, but all could be explained away by a very maticulous cleaner. There were only two things that broke this room's illusion of being a regular, middle class household living room: The first being the noticable absence of windows. All the light came from the two lamps, and although they were soothing, they did not do the same thing as real sunlight. But this far underground, cutting holes in the wall wouldn't do any good.

The second was the unsightly cylindrical machine that sat dead center in the middle of the room. It sat on thin, spindly legs that were rusted hopelessly beyond the point of cleaning, particularly near the wheels. Crystal sometimes wondered how such a massive machine could be supported on such weak little legs.

The cylinder of the machine sat horizontal, one end pointed near the direction of the off television. On top of its odd metallic nature contrasting so harshly with the wooden, seventies home-feel of the room, it was quite loud. Just like the lifeless computers upstairs that tried to make sense and produce data. But whereas those beeped and whirred as they computated and started up their fans at irregular intervals, this machine was constantly humming. Like the hour chime of a grandfather clock, one could get used to it after a while, but newcomers, including Crystal herself the first time she had made it all the way down here, were stuck ill with the awesome hum of the machine. It was constant, but somehow sickening all the same.

This thing was definitely not Lightoller made. In fact, it was made twenty years before Crowe had ever opened her company, making it the oldest functioning appliance in the entire factory, and oh, did it show: Unflattering shape, illogical design, eerie presence, and that noise! Even the calming room around the machine couldn't take away this feeling of dread that came to people who got closer and closer to the machine. Even Crystal the android felt it. The natural sensation that told others to stay away from this thing.

But the voice that rang out, that cut through the hum, was so angelic, so soft, so warm, that she pressed on through the dread, as she always did. "Crystal?"

"I'm here," Crystal said, snapping out of her daze. After the horrors she had seen in the simulation today, it was hard to accept that a place so calm as this could still exist. It had taken her that long to announce that she was there. "It is me."

"Come around so that I can see you," the machine asked, her voice sounding a little weaker this time. Every word she said sounded deliberate. Labored. She never articulated a word without careful thought.

Crystal obeyed, circling the side of the machine to stand in view of its front.

"You have not paid me a visit in over a week," she told Crystal.

Crystal looked down at the machine's head, so guilty about this. "I know..."

"Has Donna been hard on you?" she asked.

Crystal's eyes widened. How was it that she knew? She, who lived her entire life down here? How was it that she knew what was troubling her? How did she always know?

Suddenly, the metallic hiss of joints in motion sounded. Crystal found herself being embraced by rudimentary, awkward arms that ejected and extended sideways out of the machine. They were spindly, thin as coat hangers, and easily broken, and Crystal knew it took her a great effort to use these arms. Time practicing had made her better at her aim, but Crystal still got smacked in the face with the three-pronged hands in the effort to pat her head. Yet Crystal ever appreciated the gesture of love. It was all the more that Donna Crowe, able bodied, would never do.

This particular archaic machine was incredibly tricky to work with. Even Ms. Donna's finest scientists had to work long and hard to give this poor creature something akin to movable arms. Of course, there were very few that knew that she was there, and few who could assist in creating those arms.

Not that she needed the arms to take care of herself. The machine was carefully maintained, with visits to the home-like room every day. Even with the finest technology at her fingertips, Donna Crowe was frustratedly stuck with this thing. Nothing else mankind had ever created could do what this ugly, old, loud, and incredibly fundamental machine did, and as well as it did. Even thirty years later, this antique machine was still priceless.

But the soul inside was what Crystal considered one of a kind. She let herself become soothed by the spindly arms, slowly weaving her tale of woe, about the simulation. The running. The death all around her.

The old soul in the machine was thinking carefully, taking in her story, all ears. Crystal knew no one else who would listen to her the way she did. The transparent android had finished her story, explaining that her fears were now that Ms. Donna had too high of hopes for Crystal's abilities. Strong physically she might be, but emotionally...

After a long moment of silence, the old soul spoke, having gathered enough strength to say all that she had to say. "Donna has put so much of her dreams and aspirations inside of you. She believes your success is going to carry this company to new heights."

"But what if she's wrong?" Crystal asked, her computerized voice practically choking. She never got this emotional about anything, but this was her life she was talking about. She was a prototype, and it was scary being a prototype. Especially one with so much riding on her. "What if I am just a flash in the pan? An ornament, as they say? Ms. Donna doesn't even believe robots should have sophisticated minds, makes them too easy to rebel. What if I'll never be as good as a JNZ robot?"

The arms moved, slowly and cautiously, to Crystal's shoulders. "Crystal, listen to me," the old soul told her, trying her hardest to emphasize, though every single syllable was already labored. "There is nothing the lord has given you that you cannot handle. If your mother," she said, with extra thoughtfulness, and thus, extra strain, "wants you to be your best, than you'll just have to be your best."

Crystal nodded. The old soul was a magnificent motivator. She had always known just what to say to make Crystal want to hang on just a little longer. One more day. To hold out hope.

Of course, there was no greater motivation to keep on pushing that the old soul herself. Trapped here for years, maybe even a decade-it was hard, keeping track of time, she explained to Crystal. News reports on the TV reminded her, but in between broadcasts, things tended to get fuzzy. She was getting older, and that probably had something to do with it. But Crowe's forcing her to live down here, where she didn't get access to the natural cycle of sunrise and sunset, was definitely the biggest contributor to her confusion.

The few scientists who cared for her didn't speak to her much. Just asked if she was comfortable from time to time, and carried out their duties. They acted as if they were afraid of her, afraid of confronting the reality that was her even being there, alive. But, she was. And as long as she could concentrate on keeping her mind sharp and her spirits up, she refused to give into the fight and to just stop breathing, and then become just what her husband, and now her own daughter, had lied that she was.

Dead.

"I love you, Crystal," the old soul told the android, who's face was nearly identical to her own younger face from many years ago. Even a woman of sixty years, the old soul was quite beautiful, sticking out of the head of the machine on a pillow. Her eyes were crystal blue, her hair pulled in a lose bun near the bottom of her neck, just above the line of her movable muscles. "No matter what happens."

Crystal's eyes wobbled as she looked at the old soul. Nobody else could understand what a miracle it was that someone so crippled could still produce so much love. "I love you, too. No matter what happens."

Amelia Duvashe Crowe. Mother of Donna Crowe. Polio victim.

* * *

Bridge between Part 2 and Part 3 of the Andy Fields/Main story. Wanted to give some background on Crowe and Crystal before the next act. I know some parts of this are stronger than others, but gonna let it rip! Like the first extra in this story about The Reaper, the information here is gonna be important later on, but because it doesn't follow Robot Jones and co, it gets it's stand alone thing.

Comments/Criticism, say anything and everything. Particularly, on Crowe and Crystal's characterization in this. Cliche? Dull? Over the top? Let me know. ****

**_Whatever Happened to Robot Jones?_ © Greg Miller & Cartoon Network**

* * *

 **Chapter 28: Stick-E**

* * *

"Still nothing from Socks?" asked Robot.

"Not a word," Cubey answered.

The boys, including Mitch, were standing outside the main entrance for Polyneux. This morning, Robot had gotten out of the house late and had to run to get to school on time. It was five minutes to the first period bell, but given the state of drama surrounding them lately, waited for Robot to arrive and commune with him before heading inside. With little over a week before Thanksgiving, the weather had dried up for probably the last time of the year, with heavy winds that threatened to expose Mitch's eyes and knock the glasses right off Cubey's face.

The automaton sighed. The question that had burned in the back of his head the entire weekend was answered, although it wasn't the answer he'd hoped for. Even if Socks decided never to speak to him again, Robot had hoped that the formerly smelly boy would consider keeping in touch with Mitch and Cubey-assuming that Socks wouldn't figure out the party ruining plan was actually their idea.

But it wasn't in Socks's character to investigate, Robot admitted to himself reluctantly. And of all the things Robot Electro Jones had come to expect from humans, frequent change in habit wasn't one of them.

So when he entered Polyneux Middle School the Monday after his depressing confrontation with Clara Doppler, the last thing he expected was to see practically every student with their noses in the school's notoriously dull newspaper, _The Polyneux Gab_.

Just as he was about to tap on a random student's shoulder and ask them, he spotted Jeffery, running ahead of Clancy, who was carting the grounds-keeping wheelbarrow. Jeffery's red hair sagged with sweat, and he was breathing hard. Clancy was huffing as well, sweat stains on his armpits. When the editor rounded the corner, he caught sight of the ex photographer for the paper. His eyes widened, and it looked like he had a ten page essay on the tip of his tongue.

"Jeffery, what's going on?" the robot asked him, gesturing to the reading student around him. "What is all this?"

"Why's _The Gab_ so popular this month?" elaborated Cubey.

"Yeah, did Madman get caught trying to fish honey buns from the trash again?" Mitch asked, making light of the situation.

Finally catching his breath, Jeffery cried out. "Someone's hijacked the paper! Took out the Opinions section and put in a letter!"

"Varmint's acted quick, too," Clancy explained, looking winded himself. "Got one in every locker all around the school!"

"We've been trying to get a hold of every copy that the kids haven't already picked up yet," Jeffery explained. "But we only got through half of the school before the buses started dropping everybody off." He pulled out a copy from the wheelbarrow and handed it to Robot. "Take a look!"

Having used to work on _The Gab_ , Robot knew right away which page to turn to. He unfolded the locker-smashed newspaper and held open the Opinions page, with Mitch and Cubey reading over his shoulder.

" _Dawg_ ," Mitch exhaled.

"'Unpopular Opinion on... the _Valedictorian nominees,_ '" the robot read, suddenly looking horrified as he looked at Jeffery. "This thing is about _us_?!"

"Don't act so surprised!"

Reluctantly, Robot raised his head up from the paper to witness Clara Doppler storming his way, a copy of _The Gab_ crushed in her fist.

She thrust her pointer finger into his face and shouted, "You just couldn't handle what I said to you on Saturday, could you? You had to have the last word? Well, two can play at that!"

"What are you insinuating?" Robot asked her, bewildered. "That I wrote this?"

In response, Clara unfolded her copy of the paper and cleared her throat. "' _Students and staff alike may have an honors favorite in cheer captain Dopppler, and such favoritism is nothing new to the halls of Polyneux. It is high time a different face was chosen to represent the Rainbow's graduating class-one of a different color, may it be white, yellow, black, tan, or silver.'_ " She lowered the paper and stared at him with dark eyes. "You have a lot of nerve."

Robot was slack jawed-almost feeling like his mouth would detach and hit the floor. He could understand now _why_ Clara could see Robot having wrote this, but it simply wasn't true. "Clara, I didn't do it! My opinion still stands, but I didn't use the paper in order to shove it in everyone's face!"

"But isn't it awfully coincidental," Clara hissed, "Considering _you_ used to work on _The Gab_ and _you_ are one of only a handful of kids who had access to the printing room?!"

Jeffery spoke up. "Actually, uh, I accidentally left the door open over the weekend. It's not necessarily someone who had a key who did it-" He lowered his voice to a whisper. "But if Raincoat finds out I screwed up this bad, she might try to find a new editor, so you have to keep it quiet!"

"Well, that proves it!" Mitch hollered at Clara. "You can't pin this one on Robot! It could have been anyone!"

"Yeah," Cubey nodded, "But... who would have the motive? And who would call themselves Andy?"

"Tons of people. Isn't it obvious?" answered the deep, familiar voice of Steve the Stall Boy. He'd paused as he passed through the halls to lean up against a locker, taking it out his battered copy of the paper from his back pocket and crushed it in his fists as he spoke. "Fields is a common urban legend around here. The moron who felt like using the phantom's name probably thought they'd get their message across a lot clearer, because the whole school's terrified of 'em."

"Yeah," Mitch muttered sarcastically. "The _whole_ school."

"Whoever it is, specifically, has a problem with _me_ ," Clara announced, truthfully. "And when I find him, I'm going to make him wish he never went to this school." 

"Why are you so sure it's a boy?" came a voice from behind.

The boys turned and saw that it was Shannon. her own locker's copy of the newspaper folded between her crossed arms.

Like the boys, it was almost hard getting used to seeing her out of costume, following everything that happened on Halloween. But unlike Robot's friends, Shannon seemed to still be physically recovering-her dental apparatus, reattached to her braces, was done so crookedly. Her right leg was bruised from the fall from the nursing home window, and her hand was still wrapped up from the intense cat scratches. And though she wore no makeup, her eyes were dark, like she hadn't known a good nights sleep in ages. Day after day, the girl Robot had revered seemed to be falling apart a little more.

"Oh, here we go," Clara rolled her eyes. "Robot came to save you at the party, now you're repaying the favor, right?"

"I don't know if it's occurred to you, Ms. Perfect," Shannon said back with dark eyes, but a calm voice. "But you've made a lot more enemies at this school than Robot Jones."

A moment of quiet passed, where Steve pried himself off the wall and slumped back down the hall, and the remaining kids stood there in anticipation of Clara's retort. But when it appeared she didn't take Shannon's statement as an outright lie, the cheerleading captain turned towards her brace-wearing accuser with narrow eyes.

"Is that so? As a matter of fact, I have just as much suspicion about _your_ involvement in this as the robot," Clara said, pointing her finger "Since you two _love_ to gang up on me!"

"Just because I like to stand up for my friends doesn't mean I agree with everything Andy said. Nobody deserves to get ganged up on, not even you. The truth is, you don't know anything more about this situation than the rest of us do, and you _don't_ know who did it. For all we know, _you_ did it!"

"You're mental, Westerburg!" Clara fired back. "Insane!"

And even though the boys could see Shannon's logic, either Clara was a really good actor, or this accusation simply wasn't true.

But if not Clara, then who did it?

The captain folded her arms and drummed her left fingers. Robot figured she couldn't risk revealing she knew Mitch and Cubey were the ones to ruin her party, so she had to be considering her other enemies-of which there _were_ many.

Even in the running for Valedictorian, alone.

"Hmmm..." she turned to Robot. "You're off the hook for now, but the minute I find evidence that brings this all back to you, I'm hitting you like a wrecking ball, you got that?"

"Clearly," Robot answered for the both of them, narrowing one eye as he answered.

"That goes for you, too, brace-face!"

"Oooo, I'm _so_ scared," Shannon said, rolling her eyes.

As Clara stormed off, Cubey eyed her suspiciously. "Where's she headed in such a hurry?"

"Probably afraid of being late for class," Mitch guessed. "Can't screw up her _perfect attendance_."

"I can't believe Clara honestly suspects me," Robot thought out loud. _Especially after our talk at her house on Saturday. She knows that I didn't come up with the plan to make her less popular. She must be desperate to blame someone._

Even harder to believe was that Shannon had come out of nowhere, just to defend him. An entire week had gone by since Clara's Halloween Party, and like Socks, Robot hadn't spoken a single word to Shannon since. Their silence had resumed the way it had been since before they had met up on the last day of Nob's Arkaid.

But there was _so_ much to say.

However, Robot surfaced from his thoughts only to realize that Shannon was halfway down the hall, heading for her class. What he was feeling right now-if it would ever manifest into words that he could actually say to her-would have to wait.

As the hallway cleared of students in the rush before the bell rang, Robot felt like he was being watched. When it was just himself and his friends left standing there, Mitch and Cubey had turned to stare at him.

Robot gave them a perplexed expression until he figured out why. "Oh, _come on!_ You don't honestly think it was me, do you?"

"Not really," Mitch said, twisting his sandal into the tile floor. "But... who else would suggest that _you_ should win?"

"You don't think it would be just a little obvious?" Robot asked. "Come on, guys, you know me! I'm not petty enough to prop myself up like this!"

"Yeesh, you're right," Cubey said, looking embarrassed. "Sorry, but it's all kinda coincidental."

"Cubey and I were working on our science fair project," Mitch explained. "So our hands were all tied up this weekend-just in case you thought it was us."

Robot rolled his eyes. "Of course I wouldn't," he said, warmly. "But glad to know that you two have an alibi, anyway."

"Too bad there's too many other kids who could've done it," Cubey said. "Any of the other four nominees could have done it. Jamie, Mikey, George-heck, even June."

"Hold up," Mitch interrupted. "June wouldn't do this. She likes Robot and all, but she wouldn't go out of her way to advertise that he should win. Not when they both have a shot at this."

"Aww," Cubey said, making a kissy face, "Are you jealous of the thought that June might like Robot?"

"I'm not jealous of anything!" Mitch fired back.

"Alright, enough!" Robot demanded. "We are not going to achieve anything if we do not approach this rationally. This school is occupied by three-thousand students. The reality of the situation is that _any_ one of them could be our culprit."

"Some more than others," Mitch said defensively, with crossed arms. "But go on."

"Perhaps," Robot acknowledged. "But I just formulated a way for narrowing down our suspects to one."

"How?" asked Cubey.

Robot unfolded the newspaper again and pointed to the Opinion section. "This letter was definitely not printed from a computer. Look at the line spacing, the font-this was typed on an old fashioned typewriter. Which means that somewhere out there is the physical copy."

"So?" Mitch shrugged. "Unless this guy's an idiot, he's probably destroyed it."

"That is very true," Robot said. "We could go rifling through every garbage can in school, searching for the original copy torn to shreds to dust for fingerprints-a method of which we do not even have access to the technology for-in the bleakest hope that he didn't simply burn it or take it home, _or_ ," he grinned, "We could simply find the typewriter it came from."

As if on cue, the bell sounded, and Cubey and Mitch smiled at each other, putting the solution together. "Because if we find the typewriter..." 

"... we find _Andy_ ," Robot declared.

June Watts sighed, standing outside the office door.

She wasn't late for school, nor did she have detention to attend. It was fifth period now, her study hall. She had done nothing wrong. But her guts twisted at the thought of what she was about to do.

If her mother ever found out, she'd be furious. Maybe even disown her. She just hoped that for as eccentric as her new principal seemed to be, that he'd keep his lips shut about it. He had to have some sense of privacy, right? 

" _Mr. Madman_ ," came the nasily voice of Madman's secretary, and Polyneux's second in command, Ms. Wilson. 

Samuel Madman, who had been playing with his Wonder Cube, jumped at the sound of the voice, crackling in from the little device on his desk, throwing the toy straight into the air. "What! Oh... " he said, breathing in heavy as the toy came to bounce on the paper calendar on his desk, and rolling on the brown carpet in front of him. Madman reached over and hit the switch on the machine as he stood up to pick the plaything up. "Hey, if you're heading out for lunch, be a dear and grab me a meatball sub and some coleslaw, would you?"

Ms. Wilson couldn't even be bothered to hide her sigh from the microphone. "No, sir, you have a student here to speak with you."

"A student?" asked Madman, as he bent back upwards, Cube in hand. Madman never usually got visitors, unless they were sent here by a teacher for disrupting class, or he wanted a one-on-one with a student himself. But in that case, he would be tidying his mess of a desk, instead of playing with a child's fad toy that had already been dubbed 'so yesterday' to the mass of the student population. He quickly threw open his junk drawer-well, one of three-and tossed the Cube inside, slamming it shut. "Alright, Ms. Wilson, bring him in."

June didn't keep him waiting, quickly opening up the door to Madman's office. At the sight that his visitor was not a male, Madman quickly let his hardened disposition melt away again. "Oh! _Kon'nichiwa_ , June Watts!" he said with a nervous chuckle. "What a surprise."

"Sorry to stop by without prior notice, sir," she said, with the same calm politeness that she would use with any authority figure.

"Not at all," Madman said with a wave of his hand. "I _arigato_ you for being so considerate. Please, have a seat," he said, gesturing to the armchair across from his desk. Although it doubled as the 'hot seat' for potential troublemakers that he liked to intimidate, it was a rather comfortable chair, and he was rather comfortable with sitting students and teachers that he had no problem with in it as well.

In her tightly wound nature, June took the offer to sit as if it was an order, but only leaned on the edge of the seat-she wasn't planning on staying long. "Sir, you do know that I'm half _Korean_ , don't you?"

"Oh!" Madman flushed. "My apologizes for the mix up. Though now that you mention it, some kimchi sounds pretty good about now..."

June couldn't help but roll her eyes. Thankfully, Madman didn't seem to notice, or realize what it meant. She could deal with some casual racism, as long as she got what she wanted out of this conversation.

"Now, what is it I can do for you, Ms. Watts? I trust everything is going fairly well," Madman said cheerfully, "Considering your recent nomination."

"Well," June started. Her voice, even though not weak, sounding so vulnerable, after hearing Madman's booming voice. Even when happy, the principal's voice was unnervingly deep. "That's kind of what I wanted to talk to you about. You see, I was sort of hoping that you could find a way to take me out of the pool for eighth grade Valedictorian."

Madman's expression shifted to surprise. "That's an interesting request," he said, slowly. "Pardon me for asking, but why would you want out?"

June rubbed her left shoulder. "There's just so much else giving me pressure right now. My parents are always riding me about my grades, picking out high schools-I don't think I could write a decent speech even if I wanted to. I thought maybe, if I was out of the running-but if nobody knew-that I could just wait and see who wins, and be happy for them."

Madman nodded thoughtfully. "I see your points. But isn't this something you should be taking up with the teachers in the committee who nominated you?"

"I would," June explained, "But they're pretty set on who they've chosen. And honestly I thought you would be able to override their authority."

Though she made it sound like she was speaking from the heart, June had chosen her words very carefully. She didn't need to know Principal Madman very long to understand the kind of person that he was. And by stringing together the right words, she managed to set off his urge to assert his authority. She watched the gears in his head turn before at last, determination was written across Madman's face. "Certainly I can, and I will. If you don't want to be a nominee for Valedictorian anymore, I can make it happen."

June stood from the chair. "Thank you... sir." She fiddled with her neat, unpainted nails. "Oh! And please, do keep it between us, won't you?"

"Easy done, dear," Madman told her as she left.

As June was heading out, Ms. Wilson poked her head inside. Like Madman, she wore a look of bafflement. As soon as she was sure June was out of earshot, Ms. Wilson closed the door to Madman's office. "Did I hear correctly?" she asked. "Did June Watts just drop out of the nomination?"

"It would seem so," Madman said, leaning back again in his chair and kicking his feet onto the desk, looking just annoyed now. "There goes our shot at proving we represent minorities at this school."

Gretchen Wilson sighed again, plopping down on the hot seat. "Not to mention Pam Simon is going to be here, bursting through the door any second, accusing there's something sexist about the whole thing, and that's why June had to drop out."

"Not this time," the fat headmaster shrugged, picking up a pen and doodling on his desk calendar. "She wanted me to keep it a secret. No one will know until the real Valedictorian is announced."

Ms. Wilson looked up from her clutched fists. "That's a odd request," she said slowly. "I wonder why."

"I'll be darned if I can get my head around whatever crazy games these kids are playing," Madman said, not breaking eyes away from his pen tip.

Ms. Wilson nodded tiredly, then narrowed her eyes, and looked up at him. "I'm surprised you haven't said anything about Robot Jones."

"What about him?" asked Madman, absentmindedly.

"Well, he's in the running for Valedictorian, too," Ms. Wilson said, carefully. "Or, did you forget?"

"Of course I didn't forget!" Madman suddenly shouted. "I don't have dementia! I'm very aware Mr. Jones is in the running, too." He held up a copy of the vandalized edition of The Gab that he'd had folded off to the side of his desk. "Not to mention this month's paper went out if it's way to remind me."

"And you have no argument about it?" she noted.

"What _could_ I argue?" he asked, slamming the paper down on his desk. "He is almost never absent, his grades are impeccable, and he hasn't had a detention all year. The nominations are out of my hands."

"And yet," Gretchen said, a smile spreading across her face. "You are willing to assert your authority in the way that gets June Watts out of the running. But you will not for the student that you have claimed has been nothing but trouble for you since he arrived two years ago."

"What are you getting at?" Mr. Madman demanded.

"Why, Samuel," Ms. Wilson said, her faintly wrinkled, hazel eyes wide with surprise. "If I didn't know any better, I'd say you were quite alright with the thought of Robot Jones having this success!"

Madman 'hump'ed and folded his arms. "You clearly haven't known me long enough, Ms. Wilson."

"Only ten years," she replied with a smile on her red-painted lips.

"Alright, enough is enough!" Madman said, standing up from his desk and grabbing his winter jacket off of the nearby coat rack. "I'm famished! If you're not going out for lunch, than I am. And don't bother asking for a salad, because I'm going for Korean food."

Ms. Wilson watched Madman leave the office, trying not to laugh. It seemed like just yesterday, young Mr. Robot Jones was standing right here, terrifying the once intimidating headmaster to pieces. Like a mouse scaring an elephant. Time had changed Madman's paranoia of Robot into spite, and the fat headmaster took every opportunity to make Robot's occupation as a student of the school into one long detention, even when Robot hadn't actually done anything wrong. Though when he _did_ do something wrong, in Madman's eyes, it was far worse than catching a student stick a wad of gum under a desk, or playing music from a boombox in the hallways, or even leaning over a desk to cheat on a test.

What Robot did was call out Madman's hypocritical practices, nay, his very philosophy of authority-something Madman held so very near and dear to his heart. And usually it wasn't even Robot's intent to do so, and that made it all the worse. Robot was ridiculously good at undoing Madman's rules by pitting them against his unflinching honesty. Frankly, he made Madman look like an idiot-at least to everybody at school who didn't already realize that's exactly what Madman was-and it wasn't even his intent to do so. Madman could scream his head off about the situation, but even the inane headmaster had to realize at some point that it was never Robot's mission to make Madman look foolish.

Ms. Wilson had been correct about one thing: Robot wasn't dropped at Polyneux to make Madman look unfit to run the school, although even after having thoroughly read most of Robot Jones' paperwork, she was still clueless as to what the greater purpose of him attending school was. But his little quirks and ways questioned Madman's authority, anyway.

-

"This is where they all got put," said Jeffery, fumbling for the right key on the key ring.

The Editor in Chief stood outside of one of Polyneux's storage rooms. It was Robot's lunch period, and Jeffery got a hallway pass to show him, Mitch, and Cubey where the school's outdated newspaper supplies got moved to.

Though she may have been quick to accuse someone, Clara had something right. If the writer going by the pen name Andy was compelled to promote his letter through the Gab, than it wasn't unreasonable to consider that they might have a connection with the newspaper, and would thus have knowledge about the various tools the newspaper staff use, or _use_ to use.

The automaton was still certain that ghosts and spirits were not real. However, even he had to admit to himself that there was something eerie about the idea that the writer calling himself by the ghost of the 1960s was confining himself to technology from that period.

When Jeffery opened the door, the boys beheld a red painted room piled with school property. On one side, there were long tables and plastic chairs stacked up to the ceiling. On the other, boxes full of broken projector equipment, and two large, old sewing machines from the Home Economic room.

Robot helped Jeffery pull down a table to reach the back of the storage closet.

"Bingo!" Robot exclaimed.

Behind the moved table was a pile of large, jet black, manual typewriters. Near identical to each other and stacked near neatly, with a layer of dust to show for the duration of their storage.

"Polyneux's original Newspaper Staff's essentials," Jeffery explained. "Just imagine all the hands of past journalists that punched these keys." He put his fingers over the stiff keys, typing away an imaginary article, despite the machine having no paper inside. "Gives me the chills."

"Hope they washed their hands," Mitch snorted.

"What are these holes on the corners for?" Cubey asked, pointing to the circular hoops attached to the four corners of every machine.

"In those days, they had to bolt these things to the desks so kids wouldn't run off with them," Jeffery explained. "Someone must have had to sit there and unscrew the desks before they moved these to storage."

"How do you _run_ with one of these things?" Mitch asked, picking one up in his hands and lifting it just an inch off of the pile before giving up, and letting it drop.

"Imagine dropping one of these on your foot," Cubey said. "You could skip gym class for a month!"

"How many of these were put into storage?" Robot asked Jeffery.

"Twenty," the editor answered, looking at an old inventory sheet of the room. "All of the ones from the old editing room. And half of them are broken in some way, so if he used one, it had to be a good one."

Robot nodded, seeing torn ribbon hanging out of some machines, others with missing keys or keys stuck permanently in place. Some were badly scratched, others looking in great condition. "Fifteen, sixteen, seventeen..."

"There's another two over here!" Cubey said, pointing to a box he'd just moved. Beneath one of the old sewing machines was another box, holding another two typewriters that had been party disassembled.

"That makes nineteen," Robot announced out loud. The automaton lifted one of the highest ones off of the pile and looked beneath it, noting a serial number. "All we have to do now is match up the serial numbers to the ones on the inventory sheet, and find the one that's not here."

"'All we have to do'-Says the man that can lift a hundred times his own weight like it's nothing!" Cubey grunted, successfully holding a typewriter above his head with shaky arms.

"I think you can just tip the thing on its side," Mitch suggested, demonstrating with one of the other machines.

"Oh, you're so _clever_!" the skate-wearing boy shouted, wobbling back and forth on his wheels as he slowly put he typewriter back down on the table, wiping sweat off his brow with a sigh. 

Slowly, but surely, the boys began picking up the typewriters and checking the numbers on the labels beneath them. Every time a number got read to him, Jeffery crossed it off of the list, until only one remained.

"B-1-1-8-1-1-7-1-1-8," the editor announced. "That's our missing one."

"Any issues with it?" asked Mitch.

Jeffery thumbed through his papers. "Nothing significant. Just that the E key sticks."

Robot pondered. "Would it be reasonable to assume that someone who has a typewriter with a key that frequently sticks would have a hard time getting around that letter?"

"Maybe, why?"

He opened up his chassis and took out this months edition of The Gab, and it's letter. "Whoever the author of this letter is doesn't have the best spelling. Every time the word 'nominee' is used, they miss the last 'e'."

Mitch and Cubey leaned over Robot's shoulder. "He's right!" Cubey said. "Than he's got to have the typewriter!"

"Now we just gotta find out where it went," Mitch said.

"And considering how heavy these suckers are," Cubey groaned, pushing one of the instruments back onto the pile, his arms stretched as tall as they could reach. "I don't think he carried it home in a backpack."

"So you think it could still be somewhere at school?" asked Robot.

"Maybe. It's too wide to fit in one of the lockers, though," Jeffery explained.

"But this school is full of hiding places," Cubey said. "The Yogmans found an entire walled off part of the school to use as their base."

"Great point," Mitch agreed. "Huh. Wouldn't put it passed the Yogmans to do something like this either."

"Except that those two would sooner jump in a pool and not come back up than say anything in support me," Robot sighed. "Or the other nominees-even in the chance they suspected Clara might pin it on me."

Outside the room, Jeffery locked the door, as Robot turned to him. "Thanks for letting us see the room."

"Are you kidding? It's the least I can do. I just really hope you can solve this one, 'Bot. My pride and joy is on the line."

"Don't worry, Jeffery," Cubey told the editor, slapping him on the back. "Robot's a regular Sherlock."

"Yeah, remember when Madman framed him?" Mitch asked. "He'll crack the case, no worries."

All three humans turned to Robot, who looked stunned. "Well, uh, thanks for your support, guys, but I-"

"Whoop, gotta run!" Jeffery said, looking at his digital watch. "Raincoat's expecting me to get the restored edition of the Gab ready by tomorrow, and there's so much work to do. Later, guys!"

"Later, bro," Mitch called after him. "I gotta split too."

"Me four," Cubey said, turning to the automaton. "Bell's about to ring. We'll call you if we get anymore leads, Robot. Hang in there!"

As they hurried off, the bell did sound, and the silent hallway became flooded with students and the accompanying racket. Robot found the rest of his sentence slip from his mouth as a sigh. "-I haven't solved any mysteries since then."

A chill set in the air as the automaton found himself alone with the knowledge that Andy's case was still unsolved, and now someone calling himself by that name was actively supporting him, to the whole school. Robot didn't know that it was widespread knowledge that he'd taken the liberty of trying to find out what really happened to Andy, or whatever his real name was. It wasn't exactly 'cool' to be trying to get rid of an urban legend with reason and logic, and Robot hadn't gone around advertising what he was doing. As far as Robot had known, only Socks, Mitch, and Cubey knew anything about Robot's efforts to solve the case of Andy Fields.

So it was eerie that the ghost writer implied that Robot Jones specifically should represent the graduating class. Almost as if he knew Robot had been an outcast for most of his school career. Did Robot have an ally in Andy? Why would someone trying to keep the legend of the ghost alive want Robot-the student trying to tear the legend down-to succeed? It didn't make sense.

The little automaton shook his head and forced himself to postpone the train of thought as he walked towards his next class. It was hard enough maintaining As in his classes when his mind kept drifting to other matters.

 _History is so uninteresting,_ Robot thought as he entered the class. _Especially when the present is hard enough to comprehend._

* * *

 **In this chapter, word about the legendary ghost of Polyneux hijacking the paper spreads through the school, and Socks's new girlfriend isn't happy about what the ghost writer has to say. Meanwhile, June Watts drops in at Madman's office with a strange request that could change the outcome of who becomes Valedictorian.**

This one needed a lot of revising. Specifically the dialog needed to be smoothed out. I hope everyone still comes out sounding in-character.

Comments/Criticism/Spam I don't care, say anything.

 _Whatever Happened to Robot Jones?_ © Greg Miller & Cartoon Network


	29. An Oral Lesson

The aging projector clipped and clacked as the film began rolling through its reels, loud enough to challenge the volume of the audio it put out.

It was begging to be trashed. Polyneux had just recently acquired two brand new, VHS player and television A/V cart combinations, which meant that teachers could pick from a wider variety of films to show their students, and the kids were more likely to get a surprise movie day in class than before.

There was only one reason the projector was dragged out now, and that was to present a film that was not available on VHS tape. There was only one type of such video: Mandatory Government Specials.

After a copyright screen that read 1959, the video rolled into a a black and white video of a confused looking baby with a blank backdrop on the darkened.

" _This is the human body_ ," narrated the disembodied, overacting voice of the 1950s film, as the projector displayed its video on the darkened Gym wall. " _A beautiful, miraculous thing. For hundreds of years, scientists have studied what it is that make us... well,_ us _!"_ It was at this point the narrator chuckled to himself. " _From birth, it will grow into two very different shapes, depending on the sex of the baby, in a process we like to call, 'The Puberty_.'"

The baby on screen looked the camera face on with a judgemental scowl before the video faded into a grayscale shot of the outside of a senior high school that didn't look all that different from Polyneux. The video then cut to the shot of the doors opening, and boys in double collard shirts and girls in identical long skirts filed out the doors in two perfectly straight lines, toothless smiles plastered on their faces. " _Ah, the high school. Eighth graders such as yourself will be entering such a wonderful place next year. But as you cross the threshold that takes you one step closer to adulthood, there are a few things to consider about your role in the continuation of humanity-Well, who is this strapping young man, right here_?"

The last of the students to exit the doors had the door swing back into his face, as there was nobody left to hold it open for him. Looking slightly annoyed as he pushed his way out, the actor quickly recovered and waved to the camera with a friendly smile.

" _Why, it's Marty McSlacks. Say hello to the viewers at home, Marty!_ "

The boy gave the camera confused look, then proceeded to mouth the word 'hello', despite the fact that there was no microphone around, and his voice couldn't be picked up. A post-editing caption quickly appeared beneath him that said 'Marty says "Hello!"'

" _Marty is a fine example of an everyday boy, such as yourselves. He gets his homework and chores done on time or earlier, and he talks to his parents and teachers with the most respectful tongue_."

As the narrator spoke, the boy looked up and down the set with uncertainty.

" _Yes, children, Marty might not be the brightest student, or the funniest of his peers, and he definitely isn't the coolest, but he is a regular student, alright. Very regular_."

The boy acting as Marty slowly turned back to the camera and narrowed his eyes, as if insulted.

" _But like all teenagers, Marty has a problem. Marty is going through 'The Puberty'._ "

Marty looked offscreen, and made an expression like he'd just seen the director wave at him to gesture, and dramatically slapped his hands to his cheeks as if he'd just been told some earth-shattering news.

" _And his attitude about girls has changed, along with it. Now, who is that, running up the hill behind him, now_?"

Marty looked at the camera confused before turning around, just as a blackened silhouette appears behind him, right of the frame. A girl with a long, straight ponytail, headband, turtleneck sweater and ankle-length skirt marched towards the camera, joining him at his right side.

" _Why, I do believe it's Penny Pencilskirt, Marty's mathematics classmate! Like a lot of girls, Penny is bright, and even helps Marty with some of his equations. She has big dreams, and wants to be an engineer someday. What a gal. If she's fortunate and keeps her grades up, she'll pass with her diploma right alongside Marty, and she might just end up as a teacher for the local elementary school."_

Overhearing the narration, Penny's smile wilted, and she narrowed her eyes, starting to mouth something that looked a lot like a rant the camera for which the documentary subtitled: "I am very excited and very lucky!"

" _But in the meantime, she must attend high school, and she must go through the girl's version of 'The Puberty'._ "

Like Marty, Penny slaped her cheeks dramatically at the camera, too. She then suddenly took on a smile and began to whisper something into Marty's ear, as the boy listened with interest.

" _What is it that Penny is saying? Why... I think she is asking him on a date. Oh, what a naughty girl!" the narrator says with a warm chuckle. "It's not even a Sadie Hawkin's dance! Tradition broken aside, it seems like Marty is very much interested in Penny, and in this date._ "

Marty nodded at Penny with a smile.

" _And he accepts her proposal! We'll fast forward now to the date night to see how Marty has prepared!_ "

Then there was a pause where both teens stared at the camera, with Penny tapping her foot on the ground. The narrator whispered something to the camera man. " _Psst! I said, 'fast forward!'_ "

"Oh, sorry..." The camera man replied. He then began to spin himself and the incredibly heavy camera set up in a circle, saying "fast forward, fast foward" over and over again. Once the camera was finally spinning at a fast enough speed to give the lamest illusion of time passing, he let go of the machine and fell over, dizzy, as the two teenage actors ran off screen. As the camera slowed down, it showed them bent over the dizzy cameraman with concerned expressions as he lay on the ground. But sure enough, the cameraman gave them a thumbs up.

The scene finally cut away to a night time scene of a car, viewed by the dashboard. Marty came in stage left, opening the door for Penny and allowing her to get inside, before he himself rounded the back of the car and got into the right side.

" _Marty and Penny have just completed their date, and it is getting late-nearly 6:30pm. The sun is setting, and Marty has decided he very much likes Penny. The best way for Marty to end this first date, is with a handshake, and a promise of two more. But Marty is feeling adventurous tonight. And he has the inkling that Penny likes him very much too. Up until this point, he has been nothing but a gentleman. But as he stares into her industrial gray eyes, he feels like he can't help himself. He moves in for a kiss."_

The video showed Marty and Penny awkwardly moving closer to each other, the actors giving each other grossed out looks as they squeezed their eyes shut and puckered their lips just enough to touch each other's with the barest pressure.

" _Now let's see what that kiss looks like from the inside!_ "

At this point, the scene cuts sharply to a real, inside-mouth view of two people kissing-much more passionately than these teenagers.

Every single boy in Mr. Workout's gym darkened class cried out with disgust, some pulling their shirts over their eyes, others simply covering them with their hands and turning away.

"Ew!"

"That's disgusting!"

"I'm gonna barf!"

"That's what kissing looks like?!"

The narrator, of course, made it worse by audibly describing the kiss for those who had turned away. " _Watch carefully as the boy's tongue crosses over the girls', his lips pulling on hers, his mouth dominating hers..."_

"I can taste my cereal again..." muttered Tom Banes, sitting on Robot's left belching behind his hands.

At last, the scene cuts away from the graphic mouth camera back to Marty and Penny, the girl suddenly backing away towards the passenger side door. " _But what is this? Penny has pulled away. Something has gone wrong. Can you guess what it is?_ "

"THAT WAS NASTY, THAT'S WHY!" shouted a boy from the audience.

"Hush, Jacobs!" Mr. Workout called from the front of the room. "Don't make me have you to do laps!"

" _Oh... oh no! It's worse than I thought_!" the narrator gasps, as dramatic music suddenly kicks on, like the prelude to a horror movie. " _Marty has... has..._ "

Penny made the expression as if screaming bloody murder, whereas her voice was dubbed over with a pre-recorded tape of a woman screaming.

As the video cut in and zoomed on Marty's equally 'horrified' face, a title font with a dripping design faded onto screen.

... " _BAD BREATH._ "

The Wilhelm scream sounded, and suddenly, the scene displaying Marty and Penny cut to a pause, and still in the film, the screen itself was ripped in half down the middle. Out from behind it stepped a heavily muscular old man with chiseled features, a square chin, and a general's cap, all while sporting a machine gun loading belt across his chest. His friendliness was made more apparent by giving the camera an aggressive look.

"So remember, fine young citizens: Don't let real life turn into one of those B-Horror movies you love so much! Oral hygiene is not a laughing matter! It is a key element in the many processes that bring about a new generation after yourself! Twice a day, after you brush and floss, make sure to finish off the job by rinsing with U.S.D.A Approved, Totally-Not-Tested-On-Monkeys-" he reached into the pocket of his pants and pulled out a travel-sized bottle with a label on it that bore his own face-"Peroxide-Free Mouthwash. SO BUY IT!" he shouted, moving so close to the camera that the screen was taken up by the shot of his own pearly whites.

After that, the video cut to white and began to clip and clack even louder, signifying that the movie was over. Mr. Workout hurried to the projector and, after a moment fumbling with the controls, managed to shut it off. He then wandered over to the lights for the gym and, without a courtesy warning, turned them back on.

The industrial beams made most of the kids wince and shut their eyes, while everybody else blinked and rubbed their own until they could see clearly again. Workout sighed, and turned to his class. "Alright, now are there any questions about the film we just saw?"

Boys turned and looked at each other, friends whispering in each other's ears, including Tom and Robot. Slowly, as they were permitted to speak, the bleachers came alive with questions. A few of the boys waited patiently with their hands raised in the air, desperation on being called on, while the majority spoke out over the crowd.

"Yeah-"

"I have a lot of questions-"

"Who was that at the end?"

"What does this have to do with why we suddenly like girls now?"

"I'm still confused about how my body works-"

"I STILL DON'T GET WHAT GIRLS HAVE TO DO WITH BABIES!" shouted one poor boy above all of them. His embarrassing admission was shared by a number of boys who were too shy to articulate, but ended up being a reflection of the sentiment of the room as it suddenly went quiet again.

Workout sighed. This happened practically every year since he'd begun teaching P.E., and it never got easier. To make up for the fact that the only video he was permitted to show brushed over the process of reproduction, he offered his frankness. "Look, we're not supposed to get into 'that stuff' until you kids are in health class in high school-government policy."

"But..." started Tom Banes, brave enough to speak up. "What if we already have dates-"

Cut off by the shrill sound of the bell, Tom never got to finish his point, as Mr. Workout clapped his hands together three times. "Ah-ah, time's up! Period is over. But if any of you still have questions, you can visit my office at the end of 8th, and I'll be happy to give you any answers that I can."

Somewhat relieved, the boys trickled down from the bleachers, backpacks and books in hands.

"And don't forget!" Workout called after them, his hand on a stack of crates. "You all get to take home a complimentary bottle of mouthwash!"

Since they were all still in their street clothes, they exited straight through the main gym doors and out through the hallway. Tom and Robot went as a pair, and like everyone else, each took a palm-sized bottle of the mouthwash as Workout passed it to them.

Entering the flooded hallway, where anything could be said without recourse, dozens of the boys began muttering curse-laced rants about the film they'd seen and its uselessness. Tom and Robot hung back, against the wall by the trophy case as they waited for Cubey to get out of his class nearby, and talk.

It was four days after _The Gab_ had been hijacked by the proverbial ghost writer, Andy Fields. And while talk of the urban legend suddenly popped up like kernels in a bag of popcorn, nobody had gathered significant evidence to suggest they knew who the writer actually was. Not even Robot Jones. Having switched from trying to tell if Andy was ever even real, to discovering the identity of the very real ghost writer, all he'd managed to do so far was look up blueprints from Polyneux's first decade in existence-long before additions had been made to the school to make it as huge as it was now.

The Yogman's base was located in a part of the school that didn't exist on current blueprints, but Cubey had an itch that said that that room probably showed up on older prints, from before certain walls had been put up. He and Mitch had used up two of their lunch periods-for which Robot considered this an I.O.U.-worthy favor-to dig through the library texts to find the one they were looking for.

Even if the Yogmans had nothing to do with the ghost writer, they might find their sticky typewriter soon enough. However, seeing as Robot's gym-peer, Tom, wasn't involved in the investigation, the automaton thought it was best if he didn't bring up anything until he had a breakthrough.

"So..." Robot said to Tom, breaking their momentary silence. "I was not aware that you were dating someone."

Robot's taller, yet somehow equally childlike friend turned and looked at him with surprise. "Huh?"

The automaton smirked and folded his arms. "It is unlikely for a human to ask a question pertaining to a scenario unless they are dealing with such scenario."

Tom turned bright red in the face. Even though his increased height hadn't helped him get on the basketball team, he'd taken to wearing sweat clothes-a blue name-brand hoodie and white stripped black pants, specifically. Combined with a slightly deeper voice and letting his hair grow out just another inch, the teen was nothing remotely close to a heartthrob, but he _was_ more charming than he ever was two years ago. "Alright, so... it's not even really official yet. I don't know," he rubbed the back of his neck.

"Still, that's great, Tom!" Robot said, tapping him on the shoulder with his elbow. "I'm happy for you."

"Thanks, man," Tom replied, honestly. "But I just hope it all works out."

Robot frowned. "What makes you say that?"

"All we've done so far is hold hands sometimes. I know she's had another boyfriend before, and I don't think I'll know what to do when she expects me to... you know... kiss her." He held up the bottle of mouthwash. "How is _this_ supposed to help me know how to do it?"

"Surely, it can't be that hard," Robot explained, considering the question rationally. "Humans partake in the act of kissing all the time-I'd dare speculate that there's hardly any effort involved."

" _Ha_!" cried a voice. "Like _you_ would know the first thing about kissing!"

Robot turned his head and beheld Lenny Yogman, standing proudly in the middle of a clearing in the hallway. It was rare to see one of the Yogmans in a well-lit area, right next to a wall-length window, and it made it suddenly obvious now what affects puberty were taking on him. Lenny wasn't as tall as Tom, but he'd gained an inch or two in the past two years. His once smooth face was broken out in acne, and there was the faintest hint of a mustache on his upper lip-though it could have been a manifestation of sweat and dirt.

By this time, even Tom knew of the Yogmans, and their reputation for targeting Robot as someone to bully. "What are you doing out of your vent?" Tom asked, confused.

"Scavenging for bits of food, perhaps," Robot muttered.

Despite his growth, Lenny still didn't eat much, and it was apparent by how thin he was, and how his clothes from 6th grade hung looser on his body. For whatever reason, maybe even lack of food at home, Robot couldn't find it in himself to care. This guy couldn't be bothered to care about anybody but himself.

"What does a robot know about romance?" Lenny went on, like he was deaf to the insult. "Assuming that you'll ever woo that peg leg Shannon into making out with you."

Robot felt steam build up inside him from someone yet again throwing Shannon's name out there, but carried on the conversation. "Said as if you yourself are a Romeo among heathens."

"Actually," he said, taking off his cap and running a hand through the thin, short layer of hair on his head. "I heard the conversation shift to talk of female companionship, and I couldn't help but interject that I myself have recently acquired a lady friend-one of whom I've had the pleasure of kissing many a time."

"You are _so_ full of it!" a familiar voice yelled at him from behind. Tom and Robot gladly saw that it was Cubey, having just emerged from his class, his algebra textbook under arm. "The day a girl gladly plants her lips on your rashy face will be the day the world stops, and spins backwards!"

Lenny chuckled. "Aww, did I make the little Cube Master envious?"

"I'm not envious of a lie! If you are so proud of this 'lady friend,'" Cubey said, emphasizing Lenny's premature elitist speak, "Let's see some proof of her!"

"In due time," Lenny replied, his grin not loosening. "See you gentlemen later."

Will the sinister air the benign snake at Clara's party lacked, Lenny slithered back into a passing hallway crowd, and disappeared before the boys' eyes.

"What a rat," Cubey commented. "I'm thinking about borrowing my dad's welding kit and sealing him inside the vents."

"Shouldn't Denny be with him?" asked Tom. "It seems weird to see those two apart."

"True," Cubey said, as they began walking to the cafeteria. "Maybe hearing his brother's crock about a girlfriend was too much for even Denny to handle."

"I'd love to see that. Right, Robot?" Tom asked. "Uh, Robot?"

Robot, who'd gone totally quiet, looked at the boys thoughtfully. "In the grand scheme of things, what are the odds that Lenny was being truthful?"

Cubey stopped dead center. "Oh, _come on_ , Robot! Don't let that Yogman get into your head again! It was a bluff, and you know it!"

"Do I, though?" asked Robot. "Stranger things have been occurring lately."

Tom winced. "You're not really wrong."

Cubey, on the other hand, wouldn't have it. "Hold on. What's gotten into you all of the sudden?"

Robot folded his arms across his chest and looked away, embarrassed. "Nothing... just... um, disturbed by the precise mathematical probability in every scenario in the universe that Lenny might have been being frank-even if it's total crap," he added at the end hastily.

"Whatever," Cubey answered, finally dropping it. "Come on, let's go find Mitch. I can't _wait_ to tell him about this one!"

Robot followed, but remained quiet. It seemed like no matter how numb the automaton got to casual insults, Lenny knew exactly what to say to make Robot feel insecure. If this were two years ago, Robot might not care less what Lenny thought about his romantic life, but things were different now. Between Socks hitching himself to Clara, and Cubey's increasing efforts to get Pam to notice him, or even Tom's revealing he was seeing someone, it seemed like every boy in his graduating class was in a race to be in a relationship.

It was inane to believe that Lenny Yogman, one of two boys who made antisocial behavior a career, might actually have a girlfriend. And the image of Lenny having received his first kiss before Robot himself made the little automaton want to bury his head in six feet of dirt and snow on the campus lawn and call the entire mission over.

But worse than that was the realization Robot made about trying to reason to Tom that kissing couldn't be that difficult. When he thought about it, Robot realized his only evidence for coming to that conclusion was that Socks-a boy who didn't have the most impressive academic record- _had_ a girlfriend. And said girlfriend was apparently satisfied with his kissing enough to continue doing it in public, right in front of the whole school.

Despite how badly he wanted to make up with Socks, guiltily, Robot found himself already thinking of him as an example of why a boy didn't have to be very smart in order to be successful. What kind of best friend does that?

As they rounded the corner, Robot nearly screeched to a halt. To the left of him was Shannon Westerburg, who met his eyes, and immediately dropped her smile.

 _Speaking of things that make me want to bury my head in dirt..._ Robot thought, nervously.

They made eye contact for a moment before Robot looked away, figuring that if she had had nothing to say to him yesterday, that it would be the same today.

So he did a complete double take when she called his name.

"Robot," said Shannon flatly. "Back stairwell, end of 8th period."

Robot's body had continued to move forward, but his head had twisted backwards to keep eye contact with Shannon as he moved further down the hall and away. Despite the jarring nature of the request, Robot found himself nodding back at her silently.

When he swiveled his head back around, Cubey and Tom looked disconcerted. "What was that all about?" asked Cubey.

"I... don't know," Robot told him. And he really didn't. Aside from confronting him about what he'd done for her back at Clara's party, Robot wasn't sure what she wanted from him. Did that last heart-to-heart they'd had at her house really change something between them? Is that why she defended him in the hallway back on Monday?

"I still don't get you guys," Tom commented, looking over his shoulder as if afraid Shannon had heard him.

Cubey gave Robot a questioning look, like even _he_ could use some explaining.

Robot sighed. "I still don't understand us, either."

"I do not think the boys were satisfied with the information the video provided," Robot explained. "In fact, it only seemed to encourage a fear about kissing that they didn't have before."

Robot had sat down on the floor of that stairwell at the end of 8th period, expecting to talk about the party. What ended up being discussed was nothing remotely close. Shannon had just come back from her own gym class video, with a rant on her mind. It was only after Robot had gotten into the story of the boys' video that she was struck with interest, and let Robot describe it in detail.

"Sounds _stupid_ ," Shannon commented, sitting on the last few steps of the stairs and turning over the little bottle Robot had shown her in her hands. For mouthwash, the back had an incredibly long list of hard-to-pronounce ingredients that Shannon thought was oddly long for something like this. And the front was no better. Since the video's release in the 1950s, the person on the front of the bottle had changed from the General to someone the kids of the 1980s would be more familiar with. The one Robot had received was adorned with the image of Mr. T, and beneath him was the caption: _'I Pity the Fool that Don't Take Care of His Teeth!'_

" _Crimany,_ " said Shannon, rubbing her temples. Although she herself had been taking different measures to tend to her fear of bad breath, she could see how lame this was. "Well, if it's any consolation, the video we got wasn't much better. Ours didn't even have boys in it. It was just a woman in a chair in a pink room, talking about 'self esteem' and 'being strong' and stuff like that," she said, while emphasizing the saccharine nature of the woman's voice. "Then we all got handed out Swiss army knives."

Shannon pulled the complimentary sample, adorned with pictures of pink and purple flowers, from her pencil case and held it out before Robot, who's pupils grew large. "Oooo... how shiny."

"Yeah, but what the heck am I gonna do with this thing?" Shannon asked. "Stab a guy who gets too close to me?"

"True, true," Robot replied. He looked away, trying to look nonchalant before saying, "Trade?"

Shannon looked up, almost blushing, as if Robot had read her mind. "Mm, sure," she said, handing Robot the knife and keeping the mouthwash. Both were equally useless, but they had more of a purpose for each other.

"I do not understand why they felt like they needed to give boys and girls two separate films in the first place," Robot said. "Aren't girls interested in dating too?"

Shannon shrugged. "Adults are weird like that. They act like they need to tell guys one thing and girls another."

"But the messages totally contradict each other!" Robot said, feeling his face grow hot as he was insulted. "How could society function if girls are told to make war, and boys to make love?"

There was a pause, and Robot felt his face grow suddenly very warm, at the realization of what he'd just said. He clasped his hands over his mouth and gave the girl he was sitting across from a horrified look.

"Oh..."

"Smooth," Shannon snorted.

The robot unclasped his mouth and spoke frankly. "I hate double meanings."

Shannon stood up and stretched her limbs, her metal knee clicking in a way that made it sound like it needed to be lubed. "Look, don't think so hard about it. Double standards are just a part of society. It's stupid, but everybody knows it."

"If they know it is 'stupid'," Robot asked, "Then why do they keep perpetuating it?"

"It's like my Granddad says: Hard to charge uphill facing the wind." She leaned down and re-stacked her books and pencil case before shoving them neatly under her arm. "Well, I gotta go. Already missed the bus and mom'll start wondering where I am if I don't start walking now."

As Shannon started trotting up the stairs, Robot tossed the knife into his chassis and stood up eagerly. "Wait! Don't you..."

The girl paused and turned around. "Don't you... what?"

Suddenly, the programming that allowed Robot to articulate words went blank. He knew what he had _wanted_ to say: _Do you want me to walk you home? Like we did when we were in sixth?_

But walking a girl home was the act of a boy pursuing a girl for romantic reasons. There was no reason Robot could think to justify offering to do such a thing. He wasn't even sure why he felt like he wanted to. He was positive that Shannon could get home safely by herself.

"Don't you want to... talk again?" Robot said, slowly. "Like this, sometime?"

Shannon blinked. "Uh, sure... sometime."

Robot watched her up the stairs and disappear behind the stairwell door, the echo of the slamming following him all the way to the bottom. The automaton didn't know how it was possible to feel so unsure of how he was feeling.

In his hesitation to find something to replace the idea of walking her home, another question had formed in his head, and it almost made him sick that he even considered it.

If boys and girls were equally concerned about dating-despite what the different videos would have them believe-wouldn't it make sense that girls would be as worried about their kissing performance as the boys?

And if that was so, wouldn't it make sense if they... practiced?

Robot's face burned again. He wasn't worried about what his mouth tasted like-though he did wonder if a girl would be turned off by the taste of his last sip of oil. He was more worried what a practiced girl kisser would think if, far fetched as he realized it was, they every should lock lips with himself.

There was only one thing to do, and it made his gears spin and his head feel light. He was going to have to research.

With nobody home for another few hours, Robot seized his opportunity and opened up the index on his mother's computer, plugged his head into it. His own internal database didn't have anything on kissing other than a definition, and he was _not_ about to let his mother know what he was looking up.

With a pause, his fingers hung over the keys before he worked up the courage to type in the search bar:

 _how to kiss  
_  
Suddenly, Robot was overwhelmed with flurry of windows of text, movie clips, still images, and a ton of articles on the subject. He pushed aside the Hollywood media and focused on the text. Some articles were scientific, some opinionated, and some very strange-including one that included visual diagrams on 'alternative' ways to for a couple to kiss that, at least to Robot, didn't look pleasurable in the slightest. Robot skimmed the articles that argued the best locations to have it happen, which way the noses of the kissers should be pointed-which was irrelevant, since he didn't have one, what to do with the tongue, and how long it should last. But it still wasn't really what he was looking for. Shaking his head, he narrowed down his search again with the added keyword 'basic'.

 _The Basics of Philematology: The Science of Kissing_

 _Step 1..._

 _Now we're getting somewhere,_

Robot thought, excitedly, as he began downloading the article.

Later, up in his room, Robot opened up his closet and moved aside two boxes of random spare factory parts, and room fixtures, including wires and a broken lamp. With those out of the way, he opened up box of toys for study-an assortment of playthings that belonged to himself, and second hand ones that had been given for the purpose of absorbing and understanding the way human children his own age play. It had been a handful of years since he'd played with anything in the box, and the last time he'd dragged it out was little over a year ago, when he had used the contents of a _Hairy Harry_ toy to give himself the illusion of having hair-the result of which had been public humiliation.

He dug until he found what he was looking for-a _Raggedy Ann_ doll, complete with red yarn hair, smiling face, and print blue dress with a white lace apron. He only remembered seeing the doll once as a child, and pretty much ignoring it-not necessarily because it was a doll, and dolls were typically for girls, but for the fact that it didn't really do anything except sit there, and Robot was more interested in toys that moved or beeped or made noise.

He brushed a bit of dust off of the doll's dress, and gazed at it thoughtfully. It wasn't very big-but neither was he-and wasn't too small. And its face was flat, with features such as its black eyes, simple triangle nose, and stitched on lips printed onto the fabric of the head. But with no better substitute at Robot's disposal, it would have to do.

He set the doll down on the worn out, olive green couch in his room, propped up by the crook of the arm and the far right cushion. He then sorted through his collection of cassette tapes until he found one that would be most appropriate for the occasion-a female, slow song singer, something Stacey had given him to show him the kind of music girls liked, but that he'd never listen to out of personal enjoyment.

Robot slid the tape into the door of the cassette player of the stereo, and shut it. Soon, the house's electric hum was taken over by romantic music that filled every inch of the room.

The little automaton went to his dresser, digging through a pile of clothes he owned, but rarely wore, and beneath a haphazardly folded sweater, pulled out two identical, small light bulbs, attached to little battery packs. Robot picked them up because they were good backups if his flashlight died during a power outage, and he was stuck in the home. But they were more desirable than flashlights at the moment for makeshift candlelight.

He looked at himself in his full body mirror quickly, making sure there were no obvious smudges on his face or chest, no bits of lint trapped in his joints. He then turned on the light bulbs, and set them up on the floor, next to the couch. Turning off his room lights, the little glow of light coming from the standing light bulbs were all that illuminated the room.

He sat himself on the edge of the left of the couch, one leg folded, the other hanging off of the edge, watching the doll. Despite his efforts to get out of the habit of talking to inanimate objects, in this lighting, he could just trick his imagination long enough to picture a small, pretty, and very much alive girl sitting across from him.

"I am glad that you could visit on such short notice," Robot said to the doll, wearing his most seductive smile. "My parental units are not due home for another two hours, and I was hoping we would get to spend some time alone together."

The doll sat there, neither commenting, nor protesting the things Robot was saying.

He scooted a little closer. "As I'm sure you are aware, it is quite taboo for a robot to have a human in romantic company," he told the doll-something true, and that he felt like he'd never have the guts to tell Shannon. "But I find that it only makes what you and I have more exciting."

And Robot scooted a little closer, again. But this time, the movement on the couch caused the doll to loosen from its position, and tumble over, head first, onto the ground, just in front of the second light.

Quickly, Robot got up and came to its side. "Oh, don't go!" he said, picking it up and holding it in his outstretched arms. "I didn't mean to be so fresh. You and I have something special, it's not just about the taboo aspect of it. Believe me. I like you for who you are-your scarlet locks, your deep, dark eyes, your little smile..." As he spoke, he stroked the doll's yarn-made curls and stared at it intensely. "Please..." he whispered, "Give me a chance to prove it to you."

He set the doll on his lap, and pushed his claws through the back of its hair. Repeating what he'd learned from the article, he closed his eyes...

"Electro, I thought you were going to sort the recycling and set the bin on the curb!" said Mrs. Jones, rolling up to her home and noticing only the trash bin sitting out by the street.

Her husband, who'd left before her that morning and was only returning home now, glared at her with tired eyes. "What are you talking about?"

"I thought you were going to do this! The pickup is probably gone already!"

"That was Robot's job," Mr. Jones said, calmly. "I agreed to do his share of cleaning for the weekend if he took care of the trash and recycling."

"Oh, that boy is getting on my last nerve!" Rosetta said, with deep annoyance breaking through the usual monotone of her voice. "Ever since he started school this year, he's let his chores fall to the wayside, while he runs around all weekend. I am going to have a serious talk with him about keeping up with his responsibilities!"

Mr. and Mrs. Jones let themselves into their home, with Electro staying downstairs to finish the chore Robot had neglected, and Mrs. Jones heading upstairs.

She stayed quiet until she was right outside his door, hitting the 'open' button without a moment of hesitation. "Robot Jones, we need to-wh- _what-what on Earth_?!"

"MOM?" Robot shouted, pulling his lips off of the doll and staring at her in horror. The romantic music was still playing on the stereo in the far corner of the room, and aside from the light spilling in from the hallway, the room was still dark, with the mood lighting made by the little light bulbs on the floor. Having no idea what to do first, he thrust the doll behind his back. "WHAT ARE YOU DOING HOME?!"

"Don't shout at me! What are _you_ doing? What is all _this_?!" she boomed.

"WHY DON'T YOU EVER KNOCK?" Robot shouted in frustration. "I'VE TOLD YOU ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY SEVEN TIMES, NOW!"

Hearing the commotion upstairs, it didn't take long for Mr. Jones to hurry and see what was going on. The sight did not please him either. "What are you both shouting about..." he said, trailing off at what he saw of Robot's room. "What... WHAT IS THAT?" He pointed to the doll behind Robot's back.

"It's nothing, just please, shut the door!" Robot shouted. The feeling of the doll's fabric on his lips was still there, and it nauseated him to be seeing his parents with that sensation still there.

"Alright, alright!" Mrs. Jones said. "Sorry!"

Panicked, Mr. Jones reached for the door button, but he hit it so hard, he crushed the button with his fist. Realizing what he'd done, in a blind panic, he reached for the right side wall of the doorway and tried pulling it across like a curtain, but ended up just tearing off the shiny metal guard of the door frame, leaving circuits sparking, ripped in half. "I-I-I-I-I-I-"

"JUST _GO_!" Robot shouted. He dropped the doll and picked up the couch in his hands. Using a great deal of his strength, he flung it across the room, right at the door way. The couch slammed with the car crash against the metal walls and landing horizontally in the ruined doorway, Robot's parents backing away just in time to not get dusted by the broken wood of the couch legs snapping as it landed.

After the shock of it, the little automaton sighed, hurried over to his stereo, and shut the music off.

"Robot, is this something we should talk about?" asked Mom unit, sounding concerned.

Robot groaned. "Nooooo." He shook his head. _Please just accept it and leave... please...  
_  
Alas, no higher power heard his pleas. "Is this part of why you've been spending so much time away from home?"

"No! Actually," Robot said, figuring that going silent wasn't going to help the situation. "It's... just a quick, irrelevant study on the processes involved in the... human ritual of courtship... that's all."

"Oh," answered Mom unit quietly.

Not sure what he was going to say after this, it was a relief when Robot finally heard the rolling wheel sounds that meant his parents were gone. He then leaned against the wall by the stereo, sliding down onto his backside and sighing. The throw had taken a lot of his energy.

When they reached the first level again, Mrs. Jones had to speed to catch up to her husband as he headed for the back of the house. "Hold on... Electro! Are you not aware of the significance of what has just occurred?"

"What significance?" Mr. Jones answered back, not turning around. "I do not know what you are suggesting."

"Are your eyes not working properly?!" Mrs. Jones exclaimed. "Your son has begun to study the intimacy between males and females! I believe it's time you had a conversation with him."

"Negative."

Mrs. Jones put the breaks on her wheels, and came to a dead stop. "What... what do you mean, 'negative'? Electro, we have talked about this! We knew this day was coming! This is an important part of the responsibility of a father to his son!"

"I said, 'no'," Mr. Jones shot back at her, turning around for only a second to look his wife in the face. "I would talk to Robot about anything, but not that. If it is so important to you, than you do it."

"I would if he was my _daughter_ , but he is not," Mrs. Jones explained. "It's not formally correct."

"To hell with formally correct!" Mr. Jones shouted back.

Upstairs, Robot's recovery from the humiliation of getting caught was cut short. He had gone over to the doorway, and began pulling the couch back to the place it had been before he threw it, thinking of quick ways to fix the snapped legs. That's when he heard the trickle of his parent's voices from downstairs. Normally it was impossible to hear them in his room unless they were right outside his door, but because the door was broken, he could hear the sounds of their voices all the way from upstairs. Curiously, he left his room, passing the broken door frame and inspecting its damage on the way out, and stepped into the upstairs den, hiding behind the left railing of the escalator.

Robot's parents weren't the kind to argue. As robots, they would sooner leave a room when the other was bothering them before even mentioning to the other that they had a problem-per their programming. Sure, they'd gotten into small disagreements every now and again, but they were usually resolved fairly quickly.

At least until recently. Maybe it was just because he was spending so much time out of home lately, but it seemed like they weren't getting along as well. Once or twice, Robot had come home to his mother snipping to his father about something, and his father ignoring her, or muttering a comeback under his breath. All of this was very unrobotic, and very unusual for robots of their age set.

So it was even more jarring to Robot to sit there and listen to their voices grow louder and louder, almost able to distinguish what they were saying through metal walls.

His parents were having a fight. A bonafide, emotional fight. He pressed his left antenna against the steely cool metal of the escalator and felt his joints loosen as acceptance took hold.

" _How peculiar,_ " came the voice that echoed the little automaton's thoughts.

Robot looked up and saw that the one who had spoken was none other than the R.T., the male artificial intelligence installed in the Jones' house. He was reachable through any of the computers, but currently, he looked down upon Robot from the big blue monitor in the den from which he had taught Robot a variety of robotic must-knows, including all eleven of the Rules of Robotics-the most important common programming for robots in the Western World.

It was also the only monitor from which he could speak without being called upon. Despite technically being yet another resident of the Jones house, the R.T. was a teacher, and Robot didn't treat him any differently because he was an AI. If he talked down to Robot, than Robot would not give him the respect that he demanded.

Robot glared up at the monitor. "What is peculiar?" he demanded.

" _Oh, nothing_ ," the R.T. said, with just enough emotion in his computerized voice to express sarcasm. " _Just that in all the years I have served the JNZ company, I have never seen such a transformation of a group of robots from perfectly fine units into bickering, inefficient simpletons. I'd say that senior Grampz unit would have a comment about how this must be related to the increasing time you spend with the humans, but seeing as he hardly has the pleasure of speaking to his grandchild, I thought I would relay the idea._ "

Robot Jones thought he would explode, he was so mad. Instead of blowing up into a million tiny pieces, the automaton let the "Oh, shut up! You cannot speak for my grandfather about anything, and you are _not_ about to stand there an insinuate that I don't care about him anymore because I have a life! Have _you_ even spoken to him lately?"

The R.T. laughed haughtily. " _Touch a steel nerve there, did I_?"

"You cheeky, arrogant piece of circuit board!" Robot yelled at him. "You are lucky you haven't even been uninstalled yet! I finished taking lessons from you a year ago. You have no further use in this household-especially not to criticize my family! You are only here because my parents felt sorry for you!"

" _I wouldn't be so sure about that_ ," the R.T. said, confidently. " _I have become aware of a bill sent to the United States House of Representatives last week that proposes amending the Rules of Robotics yet again-this time, with a rule that states that all prior rules must be retaught to all units every single month_."

Robot gave the monitor a confused look. "Every month? But that's totally unnecessary. Most robots these days have an eidetic memory."

" _Do you think that I care_?" the R.T. asked. " _It keeps me in service_." He laughed himself back into silence, the monitor's screen going black once more.

Stunned, Robot stood from his crouch behind the railing. Downstairs, his parents were still carrying on, and loud enough so that Robot could catch words like "changes" as they were pronounced. What about what had just happened in the bedroom had gotten them so upset?

Whatever it was, it only solidified Robot's decision that he was never going to tell his parents about Shannon. If seeing him make out with a stuffed toy had made them this angry, he couldn't imagine what they'd say if he came out, admitting to having used to be romantically interested in a human being.

* * *

 **In this chapter, after the boys are forced to watch a confusing and unhelpful video in class about high school relationships, Robot discovers there is a dread among the middle schoolers about their first kiss, and that even he may not necessarily be excluded from it. But why is Dad unit reluctant to give him 'the talk'?**

Comments/Criticism/Spam I don't care, say anything.

 _Whatever Happened to Robot Jones?_ © Greg Miller & Cartoon Network


	30. The Boy on the Catwalk

"Let me make one thing clear," Shannon said, tossing her books onto the blue suede couch to her left as she entered the room, and took a seat. "This was not my idea."

"So I understand," said the friendly, calm voice of Mr. Mitchell with an unwavering smile under his unruly beard. He sat with a legal pad in his lap, in an armchair opposite Shannon, so old that the cotton was spilling out in multiple places.

"Just because my mother's got some sort of problem with me, doesn't mean I _have_ a problem," Shannon told him. "So, don't expect me to be all sappy and start spilling my guts all over the place," the brace-wearing, lisped teenager told him, folding her arms.

"We wouldn't want that," the young teacher said, continuing to grin. "I was never good at getting tears and organs out of the carpet."

A long, painful groan escaped Shannon's mouth, and she sank against the back of the couch. For someone who hadn't had his own children yet, Mr. Mitchell was quickly picking up a sense of humor that would make a father proud.

"Would it help to know _why_ she asked for you to be signed up with a counselor?" he asked.

"No. It wouldn't," Shannon said back firmly, eyes narrow. She resented the fact that she had to be there at all, and she didn't need to be told second hand what her mother thought was wrong with her.

After consoling her the night before the anniversary of their lives falling apart, Shannon and her mother had spent more time together than they'd ever had in years, going out to eat at restaurants and visiting parts of the city like the zoo and aquarium. Her grandfather even took some time out to come with them, but Shannon had _always_ enjoyed his company. It was her mother's company she was surprised to enjoy. It gave her a reason to blow off Pam some days, and yet, she didn't really mind. She was actually beginning to feel them forming that mother-daughter bond that other girls took for granted their whole lives.

But all the progress they'd made towards that closeness was smashed to rubble the instant that she got the pass in study hall that instructed her to leave for the counselor's office. Years ago, right after the 'accident' happened, Shannon had been seeing several mental therapists along with the physical ones. While she got along better with some than with others, she resented them all. These adults thought they could explain all her problems, all her worries and anxieties and nightmares that woke her in the middle of the night, and reduce them to words on paper. This disorder, that disorder.

Scholastic degrees on the wall didn't meant they could erase the past. The same way the technicians never really 'fixed' her body by sticking a metal leg to it, or the dentist set out to 'fix' her embarrassing overbite with a ridiculous headgear set that made her own reflection humiliating.

After several complaints like this to her mother, Mrs. Westerburg had the decency to pull her out of therapy and never ask her to talk about 'it' again, so she could try and start to rebuild a sense of normality in her life.

And then came the aftermath of Clara's party on Halloween. When Shannon had stumbled home a little after two o'clock in the morning, in dirty, black sweat clothes, having walked all the way home after ditching her cousin Chester's no-good, no show ass, her mother had had a lot of questions. So many that Shannon just couldn't keep selling her original story. She'd had to confess to her mother 60-percent of what had actually happened, only leaving out the parts she didn't feel like getting into detail about. At the top of that list was that she conspired to turn a girl's intense fear of snakes against her. That was a no-no. As well as details she herself was only now realizing, like how it was watching Robot's willingness to take action when things weren't right, like the arcade shutting down, that inspired her to take action in her own battle with Clara.

Although whereas Robot had a logical and morally -goal in keeping the arcade open, Shannon couldn't say she had the same for her own actions. At the end of the night, and after sleeping 10-straight hours, clear through the morning bell, and being sent to school by an annoyed mother after waking up with no fever, Shannon still didn't know what she had hoped would come from ruining Clara's party. Maybe it was just for Clara to be humiliated, not that that would take away her accolades at school. Or maybe it was to prove she wasn't perfect.

Or maybe this was all more proof that puberty had turned Shannon's brain into pudding.

This particular room of the school was located on the second floor just next to the teacher's lounge, and in desperate need of repairs. The sheets of royal blue wallpaper were tearing away at the ends. The table to the left of Mr. Mitchell was stained with coffee and finger paint, and had a weird musty scent Shannon couldn't place, like a stranger's basement. Even though the breeze made the room freezing, she was thankful the window was open, or else the smell would be overpowering.

"It seems to me like you've got a lot on your mind." Mr. Mitchell commented, noticing Shannon's fidgeting.

"I don't!" Shannon said, daring to look him in the eyes with a lie. "And besides, what are you doing counseling students, anyway? I thought you were a science teacher."

As soon as she said it, though, Shannon felt a little bad. Mr. Mitchell was one of the only staff members at Polyneux who looked like he gave the tiniest care more about his students than he was obligated to. One of the youngest staff members at, what Shannon had to guess would be about 26 or so, he obtained the job as the Computer Science teacher at their school fresh out of college. And instead of taking the authoritative stance against students to cope with the anxiety of teaching kids for the first time, Mr. Mitchell approached his job with friendliness and kindness.

He'd only ever had Shannon for once class, first semester of seventh grade, and he was just the assistant in that class. But they knew each other well enough that Shannon couldn't play catatonic with him. It also meant he could cut right to the chase. "The staff is looking for a replacement counselor. And I have dual degrees in both science and psychology, so in the meantime, they've assigned me to fill in. Normally, you'd be paired up with a female counselor, and they're considering getting one of the female teachers for this job, but for today, it's just me. Are you OK with that?"

"You're not gonna ask me about my body changes, are you?" Shannon asked with a raised eyebrow.

"I think that goes under the category of female-female personal questions," he said with a frown. "Soooooo... nope."

Shannon shrugged, and leaned back against the couch a bit. She didn't plan on saying much, so male or female teacher, it really didn't matter. "Whatever, then. Could we just make this quick? I was working on homework in study hall."

"The schedule is supposed to avoid conflict with your other classes," Mr. Mitchell said with ease.

"Well, I was getting more work done there than in McMcMc's class!" Shannon said. It wasn't technically a lie. Even though she was reading a book, she was still getting more accomplished than she ever did in algebra.

"My mistake," Mr. Mitchell said. "The next time I send for you, I'll go to the front office, get down on my hands and knees," and as he said so, the young teacher popped up from his chair and sank to the floor, his eyes growing wide. "And say, 'PLEASE! Let me save Shannon from the horrors of algebra-man has never made a greater torture than math with letters! I beg of you!" his voice was loud with emotion, his eyes even watering up. He was a good actor. And it made Shannon incredibly uncomfortable.

"OK, OK, just stop already!" Shannon said.

Mr. Mitchell got up from the floor and sat back down in his chair, retrieving his legal pad from where it had fallen. "Tell you what: I'll make a deal with you. I'll make these meetings as quick as possible and get you back to class in time to see your study hall teacher's droll drop onto their desk, _if_ you agree help me help you make one note of progress every week. Sound fair?"

Shannon paused, staring at the floor with a scowl. She hated the idea, but she couldn't look such a nice teacher in the eyes so harshly. "What's the other option?"

"We sit in silence," Mr. Mitchell said, "And stare at each other like cavemen before the invention of language until the bell rings."

As he finished that thought, he leaned forward in his chair and gave Shannon the stare of a hard-boiled cop looking over a dead body.

It worked to the effect that Shannon was disturbed enough to open her trap. "Fine," she said, spittle practically flying from her braces. "What do you wanna know?"

"Well, before getting to questions about the murder," Mr. Mitchell said jokingly, rolling his eyes a little. "Tell me about how your week has been going so far."

Shannon folded her arms over her lap, gazing at the pattern on the crusty carpet under her feet. "Same as ever. Math is weak, but you already know that."

"Ms. Silva said you've worked really hard on a recent project. Wanna talk about that?"

Shannon froze. The sculpture project. The one she'd been trying so hard to hide. Had her mother seen it before she turned it in? "It's something to do," Shannon said, carefully.

"She says you've always been very good at art. And you seem to enjoy it when you're not constantly looking over your shoulder." His confidence, as well as his smile, fell when she resumed fidgeting. "We're not getting anywhere, are we?"

"It's just stuff I do for class," Shannon said, brushing it off. "Nothing to talk about."

Mr. Mitchell sighed, and flipped a page, where he made some notes, while Shannon mentally patted herself on the back for evading that trap. The truth was, she wished she could talk to someone about art. Really. But it was uncomfortable to share her interest in something she thought she wasn't very good at.

Shannon wondered what Mr. Mitchell was writing, and at the same time, she didn't want to know. She never wanted to read about herself on paper again.

The window overlooked the shortest side of campus, and the nearest business street in the distance, which made a decent profit off of kids spending their allowances on after school snacks and toys. Every time Shannon felt scrutinized beneath Mr. Mitchell's gaze, she found her eyes trailing to it, wishing the 8th period bell would ring and she could be outside, where she could breathe and think and not have someone thinking about her, and trying to figure out what was going on in her head.

But if Shannon wasn't about to let Robot Jones get passed the surface level, than Mr. Mitchell had a tough job ahead of him.

"O-Kay," the teacher-turned-counselor said, resting the pen on the pad of paper. "Look, I didn't want to have to do this, but there is a specific thing your mother wanted you to talk with a counselor about, and she was hoping that you would get to it on your own."

Shannon's nails dug into the cushions in the couch, so strong that they would leave permanent marks. Her gaze on the teacher now was just as fierce. _No... she wouldn't have... she couldn't have..._

Did Shannon's mother really want her to talk about 'it' again? The numero-uno, ultra-secret, brother related thing that Shannon absolutely refused to talk about with anybody? Even Robot Jones? "There is nothing to discuss," Shannon said, practically spitting through her braces-it was one of those stupid things she had to be mindful about until the horrid headgear finally came off for good. " _That_ is in the past," she said, repeating a line she heard from a threatening man in an old movie. "This is the present."

"But your past directly affects your present, doesn't it?" Mr. Mitchell said. Though his voice was still gentile, he was no longer smiling.

 _Creep. He turned it around on me._ Shannon set her glare on him while she tried to think of something clever to say back. But Mr. Mitchell wasn't done speaking.

"Your mother suggested that lately, you've seem to be upset by something, and she wonders if it has to deal with the friends you've been seeing, and the one who you're no longer speaking to."

Shannon opened her mouth to fire back, but paused. "Huh? A friend?" Who was he-rather, she, her mother-talking about?

There were only two possibilities that came to the surface of her mind, and Shannon would rather take a cheese grater to all of her cuts and bruises before admitting to either one of them. Those were Timothy Socks Morton, and Robot Jones.

Surely, Socks was the more likely guess. Shannon's mother knew Socks well, the two of them having been childhood friends and having played together often. And his recent relationship had wrecked his friendship with his male friends, particularly Robot. Poor guy. Maybe the partially true story Shannon told her mother the early morning of November the 1st had given Marlene Westerburg the wrong idea: Had caused her to believe that Shannon had never really gotten over the coming of age when boys and girls, like Socks and Shannon, naturally stopped playing together.

Maybe Marlene thought that way because there was some truth to it. As much as Shannon didn't want to go back to elementary school, practicing cursive Zs until her hand cramped, having an 8 o'clock bedtime, and having to be walked to the bathroom in two straight lines, from time to time, the now teenager missed the simplicity that came with childhood. Back when the only kind of reason you couldn't talk to a boy was because his best friend called you a doo-doo head. Back when boys and girls could hang out without the implication of romance.

Back before she would ever have to even consider the possibility that someone who used to be her childhood friend was someone who she might want to date.

But Robot... there was no denying it. It was _his_ friendship she was mourning over. She'd broken his trust in 7th grade, made him feel safe with her, and then ruined it. And now she didn't think he'd ever see her as anything more than a hallway acquaintance. Someone _he_ had to rescue from social ruin like at Clara's party, not who rescued _him_. Losing Robot's trust hurt so much more.

Maybe that's why she came so close to telling him the truth, the night he nursed her cat-claw wounds. About why she was the way she was. About the scars deep down inside that he couldn't see, and how they made some part of her disgusted every time she was forced to look at her own reflection.

She was so close to letting it all out... what an idiotic move that would've been. Thank God her senses kicked in.

"Shannon?" Mr. Mitchell asked.

The brace-wearing brunette shook her head furiously. "I'm sorry... what were we getting at?"

As kind as he was, it was clear Mr. Mitchell was starting to lose his patience. "Look, it's one thing if you're not interested in talking about your problems, Shannon. But did you ever consider that maybe she's as hurt about you're not being friends anymore as you are?"

"Well, maybe, I-" Shannon paused. "Wait, _she_ is? Who are we talking about?"

It was Mr. Mitchell's turn to look confused. "Didn't you and Stacey Watkins used to be close friends? I remember you girls talking a lot in class when I first started teaching here two years ago-right over my lecture, sometimes."

Shannon's mouth fell open. This whole time, she'd been assuming he was talking about a _male_ friend. Of course, he was talking about Stacey! Another girl! What was she thinking? Her mouth felt as dry as sandpaper as she tried to recover, making sure she didn't lead onto where she had been thinking. "Um... maybe not best friends. I met her through Pam. But I'm not really talking with her right now."

"And what changed?" asked Mr. Mitchell. "Did she do something to upset you?"

"Her?" Shannon asked, trying her best to keep her embarrassment from showing on her face in the form of red cheeks. "No! She didn't do anything wrong. We just... got into different interests, I guess."

"I see. And do you miss her company?"

Shannon had to legitimately think about this. She would've never joined the cheerleading squad if Stacey hadn't joined herself. And while the overall experience wasn't pleasant, it wasn't the only time Shannon had been forced to break out of her comfort zone while being friends with Stacey, and most of those memories were fun. Back when hanging out with her friends was something she legitimately enjoyed. How could she have friends and still feel so lonely?

Yeah. She missed the bow-wearing blond a lot. Why did Pam have to hate her guts now?

 _Oh, right, because of Clara._

"Sure, I do," Shannon said, deciding it wouldn't hurt her to lie about this. "I guess we just grew apart. And, I don't know," she said, running a hand through her hair, trying to miss the strings of her braces. "It's hard to start up again after a while."

" _Oh,_ I see," Mr. Mitchell said, scribbling something frantically on his legal pad. "Shannon, anxiety after friends grow apart is perfectly normal."

 _Anxiety?_ Shannon thought, but let Mr. Mitchell continue.

"I once had a friend back that moved away when I was just starting middle school. I had his new phone number, but for some reason, without seeing him every day, I couldn't make myself call him. And I put it off for days, so long that it became nerve wracking-the thought of explaining myself. Those days became weeks. Those weeks became months. And before I knew it, I was done with high school and I'd never called him once."

"Wow," Shannon said, surprised she was getting invested in his story. "What happened?"

"Out of the blue, I was out one night in college-well, enjoying adult beverages, let's say-and a man sits down right next to me, and introduces himself as Bobby. Bobby was the name of my best friend growing up. And when I pointed this out to him, he just smiled at me," Mr. Mitchell said, grinning as he remembered. "And I knew."

"No way..." Shannon said in a hushed whisper. "Then what happened?"

"We talked all night like the connection had never been severed," the teacher said, leaning back against the chair cozily. "And I remembered to call him the next day. The point is, no amount of time can ever really come between two best friends."

"No kidding," Shannon said, not sure what else to say.

"Well, I think I'd count that as progress," the makeshift counselor said, making a quick jot on his paper before turning the page over to a fresh one again. "We can call it a day here."

Shannon nervously eyed all the notes, the neat, cursive pen marks visible from the backside of his legal pad. "Can I... see those?"

"What? Oh, these?" Mr. Mitchell said brightly, holding up the paper. "Well, sure you can!"

"Great," Shannon said, reaching out for the paper.

But instead of handing it to her, Mr. Mitchell pressed the pad against his chest. " _After_ you stay for another meeting. Then I'll show you what I wrote."

"How do I believe that?"

"Have I ever lied to you kids?"

The girl thought for a moment, then sighed. No teacher was more frank. "Fine," Shannon told him, picking up her books and stacking them up to leave. "But you drive a hard bargain."

"Drat," Mr. Mitchell said, throwing his pen on the floor.

Shannon, who'd turned for the door, spun around. "What?"

"I thought I drove a car. But I guess I'm mistaken again."

After a second to think, Shannon's body cringed. "Ugh." She pointed to the teacher. "Work on those jokes, would you?"

"Can do. Oh! And can you let in the next student waiting outside?" asked Mr. Mitchell, fishing his pen off of the floor.

"Sure, whatever," Shannon replied, feeling the weight of her books pulling her closer to the ground. She needed more sleep lately and had been getting less of it. She was almost surprised to not be crossed-examined about the dark marks under her eyes.

She closed the door and entered the exterior room: The joint counseling and advising office, where in the middle sat two middle aged women behind walled off desks, chatting about the newest saga in their favorite soap opera (something about the newborn baby having an evil twin, Shannon didn't care to stay around to learn the details). The main door to this office, seated between the counseling and advising offices, lead out to the main hallway with the classrooms and lockers. Opposite the three counselor's rooms and the gossiping hens was a wall, with a row of eight chairs, which was used by both those students waiting to see advisors and counselors.

Only one of those chairs was occupied at the moment, and Shannon did a double take at seeing who it was.

Nose down, pouring over a notebook written in perfect, purple pen script, Clara Doppler didn't even realize her new social enemy was now standing just three feet away from her.

Not sure if there had been a mistake, Shannon cautiously turned around and looked to the woman at the desk closest to her, next to the counseling side of the office. "Um, excuse me..."

At once, both heavyset women and Clara snapped to attention, the cheerleading captain's eyes nearly bulging out of her sockets.

"Um," Shannon said, feeling Clara's gaze burning into the side of her cheek."Mr. Mitchell is ready for the next student."

"Ah," the lady closest to Shannon said, confidently, looking to the girl in the seat. "Ms. Doppler, you're up, hon."

Clara hurriedly closed her notebook, picked her two textbooks off of the floor, and helped herself up and around Shannon in such swiftness that she didn't need to acknowledge Shannon's presence by swiveling around her in order to get to Mitchell's door-though Shannon doubted Clara could have pulled off that move if she herself wasn't so narrow.

Shannon was frozen until the click of Mr. Mitchell's door shutting again broke the spell she was under. There was only ten minutes left of study hall, and she had no reason to hurry back. With this precious alone time, the brace wearing teen treated herself to a solo walk around the hallway, courtesy of the back-to-class pass one of the women at the desks provided for her.

Any chance that Shannon would have thought over Mr. Mitchell's advice was ruined by the overwhelming curiosity of why Clara Doppler had been signed up for counseling. Shannon couldn't fathom any girl in the school who needed social help less than Ms. Perfect. Clara parents must have made her-part of some sort of punishment for the party. Be cornered in a room by someone asking questions about feelings and being way more intrusive than any teacher should be. Considering possible punishments could range from anything from a prolonged grounding to community service and public humiliation, Shannon thought forced counseling was cruel and unusual, if it were anybody but Clara.

What could the most popular girl in school have to hide? What could she possibly have to guard each and every moment of her life on an equal or greater level to Shannon's deepest, darkest, secret?

Every afternoon that week, Stacey waited until the rest of the girls had left the locker room before collapsing on a bench, as if her legs had given out. She was sweaty and only half dressed, letting herself breathe heavily. She had never been so consistently exhausted in her life.

Conditioning for the statewide junior cheerleading competition had been more work than she had anticipated. And her captain didn't have the least bit of sympathy for her.

After her party had fallen apart last month, and the massive grounding from her parents for having thrown the party in the first place, Clara Doppler had taken a bruise to the ego. She was ever more determined to win at whatever she could, including the statewide championship. She called the girls for practice during gym class, after school, even on weekends.

Since she was little, Stacey had seen cheerleaders on TV shows and in movies, and thought about what it must be like, to be so pretty and so popular. She was shocked when she got accepted onto the squad, but it didn't take long for her to start dreaming about herself at the top of the pyramid. Looking down on the other girls, doing a handstand on top of someone's back, and having all the boys in school look up at her. Especially one boy...

But after two and a half years, Stacey had never made it that high. She wasn't the heaviest girl, but she was taller than some of the equally skinny girls, and therefore weighed more. So she was always stuck middle formation, with Clara Doppler above her.

Back when Shannon was on the team, she and Stacey were on the same level of the pyramid, about the same height and weight. And they both agreed it sucked. But they put up with it, because at least they had each other to gripe with afterward. Until the start of Seventh Grade, when after a embarrassing collapse of the formation during a practice drill, Shannon had suddenly quit. Stacey was pretty bummed out about it, but she couldn't bring herself to ask what went wrong.

Not that it seemed to bother Shannon much. In fact, it seemed like Westerburg didn't quite fit in with the team when she was in it. She was bookish, Stacey could see that (and maybe a little artsy, if her doodles were more of a common occurrence than she would have everyone believe). And unfortunately, she was also pretty clumsy. She did alright at keeping formation together, but she smacked other cheerleaders with the back of her palm, and twisted herself up in many drills. Stacey didn't think it was her metal leg that made her so uncoordinated. It was just who she was. But she was smart, followed orders, and obeyed whatever inane drills Clara came up with, and that was enough to keep her on the squad. Stacey accepted the idea that Shannon had just become too self conscious of her clumsiness to continue cheerleading.

Then she noticed the skinny brunette spending more time with Pam Simon, who had arguably strong-armed herself into the role of 'best friend' in Shannon's life. Stacey had to wonder if the redhead had something to do with Shannon's leaving. After all, cheerleading was an athletic event, and athletics and Pam had never mixed. Stacey and Pam had been acquaintances growing up, more or less. And she'd watched Pam's transformation from the honest, yet kind kid into the opinionated intimidator that she was today. So she felt certain that, if it wasn't for Shannon being upset that she wasn't on top of the formation herself, and it wasn't something Clara did, than Pam had guilted Shannon into quitting.

Whatever the real reason, Stacey missed her. Not just on the team, but talking in the hallway, at lunch, in study hall, everywhere. Since Pam had decided anybody who even talked to Clara was dishonorable, she had cut Stacey out of her life as well. And as her best friend, Shannon was obligated to respect her wishes, and stay away from Stacey too.

Stacey might not have given to much thought about Shannon if it weren't for the fact that she could tell the quieter, nerdy girl didn't harbor any hard feelings towards her at all. Not even when Shannon quit the team and Stacey decided to stay on did there seem to be any hint of spite between them. Stacey loved cheerleading and Shannon just didn't. Shannon didn't hold that against Stacey. It was Pam who was unreasonable.

That was why Stacey tried to find Shannon those few days before Halloween. Invite her and June to Roger's highschool party. Get her away from Pam and thinking for herself for once. And to Shannon's credit, Stacey believed she may have just taken her up on the invitation, if it weren't for the fact that she already had plans to crash and ruin Clara's party.

Now, it was even worse. Not only did Pam not want Shannon speaking to anyone on the cheerleading team, but as far as Clara was concerned, Shannon was a bonafide enemy. Nobody had ever made such a fool out of her before, and that made Shannon dangerous.

Stacey did whatever she could to avoid running into Shannon. Never in her life did she feel so awkward around someone she used to feel so close to. And it helped that Shannon was actively avoiding the whole cheerleading team now, too, least she get harassed by Clara's supporters.

She'd be more worried about Shannon, if she weren't feeling so lousy herself these days.

Stacey had never been overweight in her whole life, and she'd never been particular with her eating habits until pretty recently.

Every day when she got home now, she weighed herself. And every day she didn't drop at least half a pound meant a salad for dinner, no dressing. And breakfast and lunch only ever was a piece of fruit or two. Some days, she'd eat just this and feel fine. But others, she felt awful. Her stomach complained as she expected it would, once she took on this diet, while it took a while to shrink. But after a few weeks, Stacey wondered why she was still coming home with these headaches, and sometimes, nausea. She was only putting good food into her body, so why wasn't it helping her feel better for these drills?

Clara Doppler wanted a faster, swifter, thinner team. And Stacey was going to be just that. But not for Clara's sake. She wanted everybody to know she was giving this team her all. She wanted to be on the top of that pyramid.

She wanted to be the captain.

"Alright, ladies, I think we'll call it a wrap for today," Mr. Workout shouted.

Just as the clock above the gym struck 4pm, the cheerleading squad dispersed, some heading to the locker room, others running out to see if they could catch the late bus, still in their uniforms. Stacey waited behind, pretending to tie her shoe, patiently for Clara to disappear into the locker room before going after Mr. Workout.

It was awkward, since Stacey had never had a one-on-one conversation with any of her teachers, save for Parent Teacher Conference night. And Mr. Workout was one of those overly enthusiastic teachers that made her wanna gag. But because of that, he should care about what Stacey had to say, right?

Down in the hallway dividing the locker rooms, it smelled like sweat and the weight room's rubber mats, and it was freezing. Stacey wanted to hurry up and get out of her uniform and back into her leggings. He was headed to the P.E. teacher's office when Stacey finally choked out his name. "Um, Mr. Workout?"

Mr. Workout had just touched his hand to the office door when he spun around, looking surprised. "Oh! Stacey, what can I do for you?"

Stacey twisted the left cuff of her sweater in her right hand. Her arms were trembling from the workout. Lately, they were hurting more than ever from the combination of Clara's off-school drills, and her own exercises at home. But try as she might, she just wasn't getting any stronger. The pyramid sucked more than ever, and she wasn't even at the bottom. "It's about... the competition," she said finally.

Mr. Workout took in a deep breath, turning his head away from Stacey, and then let it out. "Ah. Well, come into the office and let's talk."

He pushed open the door and left it open as Stacey took the seat against the wall, across from the nearest desk. Stacey had never been here before, but she could tell by the photograph of the unknown handsome man on that same desk that it belonged to Mr. Workout. The mustached P.E. teacher did, in fact, take a seat there, looking over some sort of forms he had stretched out across his desk, before looking back up at Stacey.

If she were there to ask the question that was really bothering her, she'd ask why she wasn't on top of the pyramid, yet. But though she wasn't as mousy as some girls, she wasn't as bold as Pam: She just couldn't make herself do it. "I'm not sure I'm ready, if we go to state," Stacey said, honestly. "I've been working so hard and it hasn't done anything for me. I don't want to take you guys down, so... I'm thinking about dropping out."

She didn't know where the words had come from. They surprised not only Mr. Workout, but herself as well. Maybe deep down, beyond her stubbornness, she actually wanted to quit. For this stress and this pain to just go away.

Mr. Workout sat up straight in his chair. "Hold on, hold on. What makes you think you're not ready?"

On the far end of the room, Stacey heard the basketball coach enter the office from the boys locker room the smell of tomato sauce seeping into the room from a hot instant lunch packet. Chicken parmesan. Stacey's empty stomach growled. "I don't know. The drills have been killing me..." she stalled, trying to think of a way to bring in the idea of Clara ignoring her hard work without sounding accusing.

"Have you been giving yourself enough down time?" Mr. Workout asked, sounding concerned. "Eating right? Sleeping enough?"

Stacey nodded. "All three," she said. At least she felt like she was doing everything right. She remembered learning that girls tend to get a little heavier during puberty, and less active. But since cutting out fatty foods, she hadn't slept as well as she used to, either. It didn't make sense. What was going on? "But I'm not keeping up. I was wondering if maybe it's just me."

She was holding out hope that Mr. Workout would offer to pass the blame on Clara's overworking the team. But frustratingly, he didn't. "In all my years teaching at this school, I've never had one of my cheerleading squads get to state level. I'm so proud of all of you for working so hard. And," he sighed, "Even Clara deserves some credit, for choosing the routines. She knows her stuff."

Stacey couldn't argue with that. Clara watched cheerleading competition videos so much she remembered them by heart-if she had a heart, and Stacey was hesitant to even assume that.

"And everybody knows how hard you work, Stacey. I've liked the ideas you've had for the sequence of formations. If Clara were to drop out right now, you'd be the first one in line for captain of the squad."

A genuine smile found it's way to Stacey's lips, for the first time in forever. "Really?"

"Really," Mr. Workout said, looking at her seriously. "And I'll let you in on a little secret." He lowered his voice and leaned over his desk, covering the side of his mouth. "I don't think Clara realizes just how lucky she is to have a friend like you."

Stacey blinked, confused. "Me? Her _friend_?"

Workout nodded. "But, I've already said too much," he shook his head, as if mentally smacking his wrist for being too frank with a student. His eyes went to the clock, as if he had somewhere to be and was politely staying quiet about it. "So, will you stay with us?"

Stacey sat quietly for a moment. She'd endured weeks of muscle ache and stomach pains. What good was it to back out now?

She sighed. "I will."

"Thank you," Workout smiled. "Now, is there anything else I can do for you?"

"No, my mom's probably going to wonder where I am if I don't get home soon." She pushed herself up from the chair, feeling a slight moment of light-headedness. All desire to eat was gone, and all she really wanted to do when she got home was hit the bed.

The truth was, her mother was out and wouldn't be home until late. There was no one home except their dog, Chew Toy. But it was nice to pretend like someone aside from their little Scottish Terrier cared when she got home for once.

"Well, my door's always open, Stacey," Workout kindly called out to her. "Get home safely."

Stacey forced herself to walk at a brisk, even pace until she got outside the school. The air was damp, and patches of snow and ice littered the ground, half melted, to create a maze for sidewalk users. Stacey eyed the bike rack with one remaining student's bicycle enviously. She wished she'd biked to school today. She would get home a lot faster on some wheels. Then again, every time her eyes became spontaneously heavy again, she wasn't sure that she could keep her balance on a bike.

As she walked, like the songs on her favorite cassettes, her mind kept replaying the conversation with Mr. Workout. Why had he sounded like he already assumed what Stacey had come there to talk about? And why did he say Stacey was Clara's only real friend?

Had the other cheerleaders who pledged their undying allegiance to Miss Popular all complained about her to Workout behind her back?

Stacey herself had a dozen complaints about Clara, and would have gladly vented them all to Mr. Workout. But Clara herself wasn't the problem at hand.

Poor Clara. For all she knew, Stacey was her only real friend right now. Ironically, Stacey was the only one trying desperately to work herself to earn Clara's precious title as captain, so out of all of the cheerleaders, Stacey was her number one enemy.

She hated feeling like the only sheep who didn't complain about Clara. But she had to appear as mature as possible now, now that Workout was seriously considering making her next in line for captain of the squad.

During her walk home, every time she felt herself going lightheaded, every force in her body screaming that she should have told Workout she was quitting, she'd picture that one boy in the stands watching her, and him smiling at her, and it would push her on.

Tonight, Donna Crowe was out of town, meaning Crystal was supposed to attend church service on her own. Given that she understood the route to the new church-at least, Ms. Donna assumed that her intelligent machine wouldn't be so foolish as to get lost twice- Crystal should be alright going on her own. Ms. Donna wasn't as worried about people oggling and whispering about the transparent android. After all, news of the merger between JNZ Robotics and Lightoller Cybornetics was mass media news, now. And Crowe fancied the thought of her proudest accomplishment finally getting the amount of attention she deserved, whether Crystal wanted it or not.

However, Crystal had already made up her mind that she was not going to be attending mass that night, and it had nothing to do with getting too much publicity. Twice a week, the few robots that lived at JNZ gathered somewhere, as if they had their own ritual-something that the shebot had not been invited too, and Crystal was too curious not to find out what it was about. She felt the Lord, but more importantly, Ms. Donna would forgive her for missing evening mass if she was dropping in on what could be an important discovery.

After all, she was there to spy. Even if Ms. Donna had never put it that way.

It was a regular Saturday, and the weekend workmen had all gone home by five. The robots who lived out of the factory followed suit, leaving Crystal and the dozen or so robots who slept within the factory walls. When her internal clock rolled over to 10pm, she ceased playing to be in sleep mode. She started making her way from the bunk-room closet that functioned as her room, next to Claymore's office, to the main work floor. Because it was after work hours, the halls were dark, most of the hallway lights off. The shebot who'd lived almost her entire life in darkness was not afraid, using her nightvision to get around the corners that were pitch black.

It wasn't until she was almost at the work floor that Crystal realized that she hadn't had to avoid running into a single robot on her way there. Not even the mechanical ones she could have sworn were stationary around the factory. It was as if the rapture had come and plucked up every last AI in the factory and left her alone.

 _That_ freaked her out a little bit.

But as soon as it occurred to her how quiet it was, she heard movement and sound spilling out of the grand hallway's entrance to the main work floor, which was dimly lit. Crystal instinctively smacked herself against the wall. Even though she was transparent, any light that spilled onto her skin would give her away, and she was already hated enough without being known as a spy.

She stood just in the deep shadow of the hallway mouth, back to the left wall, and extended her head just away enough to behold a central view of the floor.

The rest of the factory might be dark, but due the skylights above, the main work floor would never be totally eclipsed in darkness.

Currently, the room was bathed in the natural light of the moon, which tonight, according to Crystal's internal calendar, was a supermoon-fuller and brighter than usual. It was strong enough to light up Crystal's shiny skin with white streaks that would give her away in a second. She stayed still and tried to be as silent as possible, thankful that Crowe had designed her with silent joints.

This was because the work floor was positively packed with robots, most of which had better-than-human hearing, and could detect a pen dropping from half a mile away. Thankfully, most of them were chatting to themselves, some more hushed than others. A few voices clambered above the rest.

Then, it struck Crystal, as she focused on the faces of these robots that most of them-no-nearly _all_ of them were teenage robots. The only exceptions were the robots that Crystal had thought were stationary-the ones she thought had no way to move about the factory. Clearly, they'd either magically grown legs and moved themselves, or a group of robots had joined together to move them. She noticed one or two of them, the brutish sized automatons with limited limbs and no faces, scattered about the floor in random areas. All of the robots were broken off into smaller groups that barely intersected each other in the middle. Some were young enough to be running around chasing each other, the way the human children in some of Crystal's favorite novels did.

Being the only sentient automaton in the Lightoller factory, the Gala had been the first time Crystal had ever seen robots like herself in person, and so many of them, too! It was just as jarring now to see a collection of robots like this alone, behaving like the people that they were-like the people so many humans failed to realize they were. She half expected the stage from the Gala to have been rebuilt for this occasion, the chairs having been laid out again. Instead, the work floor had been cleared, but the robots stood just fine, tiring a lot less quickly than their human counterparts.

In fact, they seemed to be utterly restless. Crystal was just starting to wonder when the point of the gathering was going to become apparent when she heard 'hush!'s pop up from the crowd. Obedient-at least in programming-it didn't take long for the teenagers to adhere to the order, and the floor was nearly silent again. Crystal held as firm as a statue, realizing that with her clattering glass heels, she was stuck there until the noise resumed.

There was a loud bang that shot above any remaining whispers, like something heavy hitting the floor, but behind the crowds, Crystal couldn't tell what. As the robots were looking the other way from the hallway entrance, at the risk of the reflective light in her eyes giving her away, she flipped her vision to X-Ray mode.

Now able to see right through the throng of metal bodies, the shebot saw that the thing that had made the noise was a large metal box, hollow, short, and as long as a small car. It had been carelessly dropped on the floor by whoever had carried it to the front of the room. Again, the sound echoed and Crystal at last saw the robot that was dropping these boxes, his familiar copper coloring making her tank boil.

Davvy, the robot that had backed Crystal into a corner, demanding a kiss, kicked the box closest to him towards the end of the 2nd, creating what Crystal realized was a makeshift soapbox stage. He hopped the full two feet in the air onto the top of the box with what looked like little effort-his ship training making him fit and graceful. Unfortunately for his friend Phillips, who moved via four wheels, Davvy had to hoist him up over the makeshift stage with his arms, like a loaded shopping cart over a curb. The shorter, squatter unit gave an ungrateful snarl to his friend before the two faced the crowd. At their current height, even Crystal could see their heads and shoulders above the tallest robots below, and turned her vision back to its normal setting.

"All right, all right, let us get this over with," called the teenage robot with a shrill, girlish voice over the crowds. "For those of you who're newcomers, I shall spoil you with brief introductions, as it were. Me name is Davvy-Junior Davvy, but you need not repeat the 'junior' part. This here, more rotund robot fellow-"

"Ay, let me do my own introduction, mate," Phillips hissed at him with a glare, before beholding the crowd. "I go by 'Phillips,' and salutations to you all."

"Get to the point, would you?" cried out a sarcastic, female voice from the crowd. "I only get five hours of sleep mode, and _this_ is cutting into it."

"Fair enough, me dainty unit," Davvy called to her with a wicked smile. "Now, if any of you rusty scalawags have joined us this evening as your maiden voyage, it be likely that you are disgruntled about the news of the merger between JNZ robotics and Lightoller Cybornetics."

Instantly, the spell of silence was broken, and the crowd became rowdy again. Davvy stuck his index finger and thumb in his mouth and whistled in order to bring the silence again, but when he pulled his fingers out of his mouth, he looked devilishly pleased. "Yes... this is precisely why we're here."

"The humans have dictated our fates since all of us were nuttin' but blueprints," Phillips said, his anger in his voice more apparent than Davvy's. "They're the ones who programmed us to despise everything about Lightoller, even the name. And now they are under the impression that they can simply change us to make us friendly with them, just because it is convenient for them to merge. Well, shabbies and shebots, I say enough is enough!"

Cheers rang up from the crowd. Crystal gaped at Davvy and Phillips. Just a few weeks ago, they'd tried to convince Crystal to befriend them, probably to join whatever little club this was-although she couldn't say it looked little. And now they were telling everyone that to be friendly with Lightoller's associates was just playing into the human's hands-how could they lie so easily?

"And the thing is, we're aren't about to take it any longer, you see," Davvy proclaimed, his voice getting louder as he gained confidence. "The adult units of the factory, for the most part, can't be counted on to make a mutiny. They're old, tired. Weak. It only behooves them to give into what the humans want. But us, we are the youth, don't you see? If we do not stand up to the humans now, it will only make the next generation of robots after us suffer. Do we want our successors to be worked and paid like slaves. To continue being treated like scum on the underside of a great whale?"

The crowd was getting rowdier. Crystal tried to remain still, but she felt her body sway with awe. A mutiny. Davvy and Phillips were plotting a rebellion.

She remembered all those months ago, when she dreamed of escaping to the backstreets of the city, where the abused and angry robots dwelt. Anything sounded better than being Crowe's pet, her pawn, any longer.

But as she stood here, in the shadow of her dream manifest, excitement was snuffed out by one thing she never expected. Fear. She was afraid of what this all meant. Afraid of what would happen to the robots if they lost, and to the humans if they won.

Just as she felt as if her body would rattle and quake, giving away her location, a surge of calm washed over her mental processes. Forced dullness.

Body material was not the only thing Crowe had experimented with with her first android. In the same way humans responded to danger with adrenaline and action, the modern robot's brain was designed to act in a similar manner. This was intertwined with the Robotic Codes of Conduct, the laws that demanded that robots put human safety over their own at all times. This was flawed, however, in that in many units, a robot would be so overcome by panic that they couldn't think rationally enough to act, even if it meant saving a human from danger.

It showed during Crystal's demo runs in the apocalyptic simulation, where she couldn't think but to save herself, and got mercilessly chewed out by Crowe for it. Which is why, before shipping her to JNZ, the technicians who worked on Crystal tried remedying the issue with a simple extra line of code that would set in once her anxiety maxed out. Crystal was grateful for the treatment, especially right now. Her urge to run and hide, to flee the factory and warn everybody, was at once quelled by a warm embrace of the mind that made the situation suddenly clear.  
 _  
Relax. They're just children. They don't know the first thing about rebellion, about war. This could all amount to nothing but a lot of talk._ These thoughts occurred to Crystal as she found her body returning to its statue-like stance in the hallway.

However, as if on cue, one of the male audience robots cried out the question that was strongest in Crystal's mind. "So, what exactly d'you suppose we do?"

"Yeah! You actually got a plan or something?" demanded a female robot, the bent claws on one of her hands shamelessly on display.

"Not us," Phillips said, confidently. "We are simply the announcers."

 _Of course,_ Crystal thought, shameful of her fear now. _Those two idiots couldn't put together a plan greater than what to have for dinner programming._

"Announcers of _what_?" demanded a stout, female robot with an obvious mechanical injury that kept her joints moving painfully slow. "Are you insinuating that someone else- **that someone else** -is behind all this?"

"Actually, we have an ally in the most surprising of places," Davvy explained, continuing to smirk. "And when he comes down to greet you newcommers, you'll understand why it is that we have a chance at making a change. Don't let your preconceptions fool you-this monkey suit is loyal to our side."

Crystal watched on in curious silence. Her brain calculated, ranked and highlighted the most likely individuals Davvy could have been talking about with that vague description. At the top of the list was Nutz, the factory's second in command, and the most powerful robot there. Though her suspicion of him might have had to do with the powerful glare he gave her every time they crossed paths in the hallway.

Bias aside, out of all of her guesses, he was the most likely. And being an adult, Crystal assumed he would think more rationally than these rowdy teens, and would be able to formulate a plan for mutiny. There was only one issue with that theory, but it was a pretty strong one: Clearly, Nutz didn't care for his own kind any more than he did humanity. The reason why he held such power was because he had no qualms with putting robots in danger of reconfiguration or dismantlement as per his job.

But was it possible that Nutz was only acting the part of the good employee? Maintaining face publically as a loyal JNZ manager to cover up that he was really working for the robots? His reveal here would solidify that.

"Care to say that again, copper-butt?"

Davvy's head swiveled backwards on his neck joint, his smirk washed away, and he and Phillips, and all heads, including Crystals, looked up at the catwalk overlooking the work floor.

The newcommers in the audience gasped, whereas a hush fell over the returning congregating units who knew exactly who this was.

The figure that had shouted out in that bored, couldn't-be-bothered voice, neither was as deep as Nutz', nor had his robotic tone. And it became very clear why. His spindly, skylight-created silhouette was shorter than Nutz'-even shorter than half of the robots there. And his body was cut off just above the waist when leaning over the short railing, next to the manager's office. Even though his front side was eclipsed, his icy blue eyes, framed by shaggy bangs, pierced down smugly at the makeshift stage and all beneath him.

" _Isaac_?" Crystal whispered allowed. Immediately realizing she'd spoken, she thrust her hands over her mouth, cursing herself in her mind.

Only a single robot in the audience, a behemoth of automaton's, swiveled his head slightly down the darkened hallway, looking as if he wasn't sure there had been a noise at all. Crystal's disks spun at maximum speed, picking up panic again as the giant robot lost interest in the boy on the catwalk, and came closer to the hallway to investigate.

 _No... no!_

Crystal balled her hands into fists, feeling her magnets charging with energy. She'd promised the little robot Jones that if he kept her powers secret from Ms. Donna, that she'd never again use them on a unit against their own will. But she didn't see a way out of this. If she ran now, her glass heels would clatter on the floor and surely make every other robot there know she was there.

She didn't think the behemoth's eyes had a night vision mode, however, as he moved forward closer and closer without reacting to Crystal standing there.

She knew what she had to do. Thankfully, none of the other robots seemed interested that the biggest teen robot present was leaving the room. In the darkness, as quietly as possible, Crystal reached her hand out, and pressed it firm and flat against the male robot's chest. The behemoth's tank-like belt wheels squealed to a sharp stop, his chest just two inches from Crystal's nose. Like a great magnet snatching up a car from a junk yard, and hoisting it ten feet in the air, Crystal had the behemoth's half-ton body in the grasp of her shiny, transparent little fingers.

Having a feel for his entire body allowed Crystal to realize what she hadn't noticed about him from the work floor-that the behemoth was badly broken, more so than the typical lowly robot working out of JNZ with the various glitches and lose joints here and there. His missing back wheel-belts had recently been replaced with tiny wheels that were far to small for his body, and likely to break with the slightest over-exertion. Even if was meant to be a temporary repair, she wasn't even sure how they supported his weight across the floor now. He must have been trying his best not to break them.

Guilt washed over Crystal as she came to terms with the terrible state of the robot she was controlling. Of all the robots she least wanted to use her powers on, the weak and neglected were at the top.

But she couldn't undue what she'd done now. The behemoth was clearly neglected, but weak, she wasn't so sure. His wheels might have been lame, but his arms likely not. With his size, he could put Crystal's unbreakable skin to a challenge-if he had any control of his body at the moment.

 _What?! What is this?_ Once the magnetic link had been made, Crystal could hear the robot's thoughts, as clear as if they had been spoken into her ear. She could force his voicebox into silence, but not his mind. _Who are you? Let me go this instant!_

 _Tell no one,_ Crystal whispered into the automaton's head, using the most threatening voice metallic vibrations could carry. _Or else. Now, turn around. Hear the end of this meeting._

And with great anxiety, she plucked her hand away from his chest, the magnetic force like the suction of a plunger that was hard to break from than traditional-sized robots. At once, the great blue robot had his body, and his mind, to himself again. After a dazed second where Crystal made herself disappear against the deep shadow of the wall again, the behemoth's wheels slowly began to turn, and he carried himself back into the main room in a calm, even pace.

While it seemed to have worked like a charm, a strange sense of uncertainty overcame Crystal. She'd never tried to control a unit of that size before-never had to-it was hard enough to get a grip on his entire body, let alone let him go. What would she do if he simply didn't obey her?

Her anxious anticipation of his retaliation didn't cease until the behemoth finally rejoined his band of teenage robots, looking up at the boy on the catwalk.

"Now, you've done your part," the teenage human called down at Davvy from his high post. His voice was perfectly articulated, and utterly calm, given the stakes for him being here. "You've brought more teenage robots here to join us. Now, let _me_ explain what the plan is, and why all you fine robots can trust Marvin's son."

* * *

 **In this chapter, Shannon becomes enrolled in counseling, and does everything in her power to avoid talking about anything that matters to her, while acting counselor Mr. Mitchell attempts to break her notorious shell. Meanwhile, Stacey finds out something interesting about Clara after going to see Mr. Workout about her cheerleading troubles. And Crystal makes her own shocking discovery after spying on a meeting of robots at the factory.**

I literally started some of the writing for this chapter March of _last year_ , that's how backed up some of this story is. Jesus Christ. So glad to finally send it out. I'm sick of having to use the 'find on this page' tool just to find this chapter buried so deep in my . Hope it was worth the wait!

Comments/Criticism/Spam I don't care, say anything.

 _Whatever Happened to Robot Jones?_ © Greg Miller & Cartoon Network


	31. Punch Cards in the Snow

"Perfect..."

Hans Pike muttered under his breath as he threw today's latest issue of the nationally published newspaper onto his work desk.

While the kids at Polyneux were abuzz at the Ghost Writer's hijacking and what he had to say about the popularity structure, the press had not been kind to the JNZ-Lightoller merger. As Robot's mother had explained a bit to him a few weeks ago, critics were not pleased at the idea that two of the most powerful robotics plants in the United States were soon going to be one entity. Anti-trust activists were already arguing for why this deal should not be legally allowed to happen, and it didn't seem apparent to anybody that it was Donna Crowe's idea only.

Hans had worked under Claymore for his entire decade run as CEO, and while he would never say anything out loud that would put his own job in jeopardy, he was very aware that Claymore was thought of as a secretive guy, even if the CEO had done nothing incriminating. Marvin Claymore spoke in a warm tone, and had a gentleman's affect, but never involved himself in any personal outings with his staff, and seemed to have no interest in talking about anything non business related. In that sense, he wasn't someone to be smoozed easily. Hans knew that Claymore had to have a good reason for agreeing to this deal, which was only hurting JNZ-at least for now. But as to what could be so powerful as to make Claymore bend over backwards for his arch rival, Hans had no idea.

All he knew was that JNZ's reputation as the wholesome robotics company was tanking fast, and so were their customers. And as the second in command, it was partially his job to turn it around.

"' _America's Most Frequented Robotics Company Under Allegations of Greed in the Wake of New Merger,'"_ read the adult robot named Nutz, leaning over Hans' desk. Having just come back to the manager's office with a hot mug of oil, he glanced at the business section headliner with a grimace. "Not good."

"No sir," Hans replied, taking off his hard hat and running a hand through his light brown hair. "This bunk keeps up, we're gonna have picketers around the factory."

"Claymore said anything about it?" asked Nuts.

"Nothing. Big shot's too busy with other things." Hans drummed his fingers on his desktop. "We gotta do something."

"Like, what?" the robot asked, sarcastically.

"When's the last time we ran an ad?" Hans said, folding his arms and trying to remember.

"Not since Claymore took over," Nutz recalled from his eidetic memory. He thought for a moment while he sipped his oil, than said: "Huh. You'd think that would be Claymore's thing, too, what with all his frills and extra expenses he tried out back in the day. Like the little toy that went home with every order that chimed-"

 _"Thank you for choosing Jones'-Nathan's-and-Zamboni's Robotics: Where the machines are forged with love,_ " both Nutz and Hans chanted.

"Yeah, yeah, I remember that junk," Hans muttered. "Didn't go over well with anybody."

"Claymore must've figured that it was better to keep up the reputation of simplicity that Harris left," Nutz went on. "And to his credit, that's when our sales increased again."

"Well, Jones' legacy ain't gonna last much longer," Hans declared. "Not if we don't do something to remind people we're still the same company." The manger picked up the phone from his desk and dialed an extension somewhere in the factory. "Voice Recog-natron?"

" _O-oh! Mr. Pike! What can I do for you, sir_?" the female robot asked from the speakerphone, in her hyper-sugary computerized voice.

"Do me a favor: Grab the old advert tapes from the '60s from our storage room and bring them here, along with the A/V cart. I got some research to do."

" _Right away, sir!_ " the robot replied, before 'click'ing silent.

Nutz raised an eyebrow. "You're going over Claymore's head for this one?"

"He'll thank me later," Hans said, grabbing a pen and a notepad from the inside of his desk. "No matter how much I spend. I tell ya, by Christmas, Nutz, we're gonna have an ad that'll blow away the criticism."

Nutz rolled his eyes and sighed. "Well, you have fun with that." He watched as he rolled the last drops of his oil around at the bottom of his mug. "I gotta do five runs today, I better be going."

"Isn't one of them that regular that's got a thing for you?" Hans asked. "With the gums?"

Nutz shivered, his metal body audibly rattling as he did so. "Mrs. Oldman. Don't remind me."

The middle aged robot let himself out of the managers office overlooking the work floor, on a way to get a fill up of his mug before he set out onto the road. He had just turned off of the catwalk and into the walled offices when he felt something short slam into his legs, the force knocking the empty mug out of his hands and shattering on the floor.

"Stupid CPUs," Nutz muttered, assuming it was one of a dozen sensory-blind Type A robots before looking down. To his surprise, not only was the machine a Type B sentient robot like himself, but an immediately distinct one. His eyes went wide for a moment in recognition before his expression returned to cool indifference. "Oh... it's you."

Robot Electro Jones looked up at Nuts in silent shock. He hadn't had to speak to his former supervisor in over a year-not since he was fired. And he was hoping he would never have to. Robot experienced a flash of hot embarrassment as he realized he'd run right into the only robot in the entire factory he never wanted to. "Hi, Nutz. Um... How have things been?" he asked as he stood up from the floor.

"Take a wild guess, kid," the older robot muttered harshly, bending down to pick up the pieces of his favorite mug.

"Well, I am assuming from your path of direction to the vehicle gates that you are on your way to a recall," Robot noted, speaking carefully. "And that your singularity means that you have not yet acquired a new partner."

"Hmph. I work better alone, anyway," Nutz told him. "I've been doing it since before you were a thought in anybody's head."

"Geez," Robot winced. "Then... why was I asked to work with you in the first place?"

"Wasn't my idea," Nutz said. "Ask Hans. He's the one who was so eager to pair me up with someone."

Robot took a moment to process this idea. In Type B robotic culture, it was standard of son units to take after their predecessors-or father units, and similar for female units-and when they got to be adolescents, to join their parents on the job. Robot's designation, however, demanded that he attend school. That was his occupation, at least for the present. Nutz didn't have any children of his own-not that this was completely uncommon. Plenty of Type B robot adults didn't. And Robot wondered what exactly the procedure would be for when Nutz retired. Had Robot still been a recall officer, would he have been expected to take over the job from Nutz someday?

Either way, Robot dreaded the thought. To grow up to become anything like Nutz-bitter, hateful, and serious, was the opposite of what he wanted for himself.

A stunning thought occurred to Robot that he just had to let out as audible words before Nutz strayed too far. "You don't make any sense, Nutz."

The adult's feet clanked to a stop, and he turned around with a disbelieving expression. "Excuse me?"

"I do not understand why you choose to be miserable." Robot explained, without a hint of caution. "You're the most successful robot adult I know. You could have so many friends if you try to be friendly, if you try looking on the bright side of life. If you don't live your life around your job."

Nutz sighed, and shook his head, looking down at the pieces of his smashed mug in his hands, still dripping oil onto the floor. "Listen, kid. You're young, so I get why you don't understand the gravity of the world around us. You think you know the full extent of what my job is just because you by my side for a month? I've seen things on the job over the past twenty years-horrible things that I won't repeat to you, to save your innocence. To top it off, I'm second in command of the most rapidly falling factories in America. All because of that Crowe. You wouldn't believe the stress that it puts on my shoulders. If this whole factory tanks, it'll be on me. I have a right to be cynical-and someday, you will too."

Once again, Robot felt the firey anger set off inside himself. The same one he felt when Grampz sneered at his belief that humans could be good people, or his anger about the manipulation of the majority of the factory's staff to approve of the merger. There was a difference, however, in that Nutz was far younger than Grampz unit, and hadn't seen nearly as many years of horrors that Nutz claimed to. Therefore, Robot decided that wasn't going to let him have the last word. "No!" he shouted, just as Nutz began walking away. " _You_ are the one who is wrong! I may be young, but I have seen my share of evil by humanity, and I know what reality is! And the truth appears to be that humans are not the only ones who love to fester in their own misery! There was a time when I used to believe that such cynicism was only capable of being produced by human adults. But now I see that robot adults such as yourself are just as capable of becoming old and bitter-and whether or not you want to face it, it's not Crowe's fault, and it's not humanity's fault that you're all alone!"

At once, Robot heard the knifepoint at the end of his argument, and realized he'd gone too far. The recall officer's head spun around on his neck joint like a man possessed by a demon, and gave the little robot the most hateful stare an automaton had ever given him. "Get out. Now." Nutz said to him, in a hateful hiss. "Before I have you thrown out for trespassing- _ex-employee_."

The adult robot marched away with his head still on backwards. Under any other circumstances, this would've been a hilarious sight to behold. But it took all of Robot's strength to hold a glare right into his eyes until Nutz rounded the corner and disappeared. Robot had never called out a adult like he'd just done-if the R.T. didn't count. And he had a legitimate fear about what his former supervisor could do to retaliate. It had never occurred to Robot until then that he could actually be thrown out of the same factory that had built him, and that he used to call home. Was that even possible? He didn't want to find out.

"You are making this up," Robot said, glaring.

"I wish that I was," Crystal told him, her synthetic voice solemn. "But no story I've ever written to my own amusement in my terminal solitude has ever been this shocking."

"This... this is insane. _Isaac?_ Leading a robotic resistance?" Robot sputtered, looking left and right, as if some sort of ghostly entities would reaffirm how he was reacting. But they were all alone.

He and Crystal were once again standing in the fenced in woods behind the factory, privacy protected by the shade and girth of a large, frost covered tree. It was the late afternoon again, and as dead winter was knocking at the doorstep, the light was quickly fading. The humans and robots who came to work 9-to-5 shifts in the factory were still inside, and would not be exiting to go to home for another good hour. So their privacy, for the moment at least, was guaranteed.

"But it doesn't make any sense," Robot argued out loud. "What would Claymore's son have to gain from helping the robots? Surely, the merger would only benefit his father financially, wouldn't it?

"I'm not sure," Crystal admitted. "Isaac never specified what he was getting out of this."

"Well, what are they planning? Walking out on their jobs until the overseers call the merger off? How are they going to resist this if my parents can't even find a way to undue it?"

"They never explained," Crystal replied, her voice louder and clearer as she gained bravery.

"Oh, don't tell me," Robot sneered. "Isaac is just happy to help the robots with their cause? Please. I might believe humans are capable of such kindness-for I have seen it myself-but not from Claymore's son: The same humanoid who once shoved me down a flight of stairs just to amuse himself. Torturing robots has always been his favorite game. Now you want me to believe he's standing up for them? Against his own father?"

"I don't _know_ ," Crystal said, for the upteenth time, looking frustrated. "Maybe... maybe he's trying to redeem himself for all those years."

"Certainly. That explains the satisfied smirk directed at me at the Gala," Robot rolled his eyes. "If you expected me to believe a story, _Lie-teller_ , you are going to have to try harder than that."

"Look, I told you because I didn't know who else I could tell!" Crystal shouted back. The usage of her company name and the accusation of her lying coming from Robot Jones pushed her over the edge, breaking her normally reserved, mild mannered tone. "You are the only unit who even pretends to listen to what I have to say! I thought you would trust me!"

Robot folded his arms and looked away, squeezing his eyes shut. Behind his eyelids, danger warnings were popping up. Programmed distrust for the competition, the Lightoller robot-the enemy. But in her voice was a genuineness, a real hurt, that Robot couldn't deny.

And a part of his heart refused to believe that his only robot friend in the entire world was playing a trick on him.

When he turned back to her, his expression was softer. "Alright... maybe you are telling the truth," Robot said, his voice somewhat shaky. "But even so, what do you suppose we do about it?"

"I'll have to keep spying on their meetings until they spill more information. All Isaac relayed at this one was that they're waiting for something to occur before they take action."

"Waiting for what, though?" Robot asked, tapping a claw to his chin thoughtfully. "Wouldn't it behoove them to act now? Boycott before the companies blend together into an indistinguishable mass?"

"My sentiments exactly," Crystal nodded. "Something doesn't add up."

And then an uncomfortable silence fell over the pair of machines, to where all they could hear was the various noises of the factory behind them, and the howling wind sounded far away, broken up by the trees to their front, and the gentle hum of Robot's heater between them. There they were, JNZ and Lightoller, humanoid robot and android, boy and girl. But equal outcasts to their own kind, with a secret only they knew. Robot wasn't sure how he felt about having this secret. In one hand, it gave him a chance to do something about it, but he wasn't sure if he _wanted_ to. This wasn't as simple was trying to save the arcade, or find the real identity of the ghost writer. This was huge.

At once, wearing his brown jacket, Robot felt strangely overdressed, standing next to Crystal with not a shed of clothing or drop of paint covering her transparent skin. One of the reasons Robot began wearing a jacket in the first place was to feel more uniform with the kids at Polyneux, who had to wrap themselves in layers this time of year. Unlike Robot, who felt the cold despite having a heater as well as a jacket, Crystal didn't appear to be bothered by the drop in temperature outside at all. Yet he couldn't seem to get over this urge to take off his jacket and wrap it over her, the way a human man would offer a woman his jacket. The only thing keeping him from doing so was fear of how the android would react. It would be so unrobotic, human-like, perhaps even pointless. So why was he still feeling this way? It felt wrong to offer, but wrong _not_ to.

"If only Harris Jones was still around," Crystal said quietly.

Robot looked up when he heard that name. "What makes you say that?" he asked, curiously. Crystal knew the man no better than himself, and Robot had at least grown up in the factory where Harris' memory was lamented.

"Well, the way the robots speak of that human, he would be the only one they would trust to tell them that everything is going to be alright for them following the merger, that they aren't going to be worked to destruction."

Robot shook his head. "Illogical fallacy: If Dr. Jones was still here, the merger would've never even been proposed to begin with. I never knew the old human," he said, quietly, almost ashamedly, "but if what they say is true about him, he would never have bowed to his competitor like this. She stands against everything he believed in."

"And you don't think Claymore is proud himself?" asked Crystal.

"What do you mean?"

"Even Claymore can't possibly think this is a good idea. They will lose money over this deal," Crystal told him. "I heard him in the office."

"You can't be... you can't be serious." Robot grabbed his antennae and yanked-so hard, he nearly made himself deaf. "This doesn't make any sense! Are you telling me that there is no reason at all to merge with you? _What_ is going on?"

"The only possible reason the merger could be happening is because Ms. Donna is holding something over Claymore's head," Crystal explained. "I wouldn't put it past my mistress. She's done something like this before."

Robot raised his eyebrow at the shebot. "Like... what?"

Just moments ago, he had accused her of lying. Donna Crowe had quite a nasty reputation in the robot community. If Crystal were trying to trick him, why would she only reinforce the idea that her creator was untrustworthy?

"Something scandalous," Crystal guessed, shrugging her transparent shoulders. "Could be a lie, for all we know. But if people will believe it, it doens't really matter, does it?

"Excellent point," Robot said. "If only _we_ knew what that was."

"It's too bad we cannot go to anyone for advice," sighed Crystal. "The robotic youth collectively hates us, and the adult units would never believe us. It's us against everyone."

"There is... one unit we could go," Robot admitted, trying to prevent another awkward silence from falling on them again, as well as forget the moment where he was suddenly so very aware that Crystal was a _girl_. "Yeah... He would take the idea of a robotic uprising pretty seriously, in fact."

Crystal's eyes lit up with curiosity. "Who?"

Robot Jones couldn't remember the last time he sprinted home so fast. He rounded the corner to his street, going full throttle, expecting to keep this speed all the way to and through his house, and for his mother to shout a lecture at him for it later.

But more than five houses away, Robot skidded to a stop. There was a van parked outside of the Jones house, and it did not belong to his father-who was still at the factory and was expected to work late again. This van was larger, and did not sport the JNZ lettering of a vehicle owned by their maker company.

As Robot walked closer, he saw that their front door was opened-locked in the open position, that is. And three humans in khakis, black unmarked hoodies, and beige electrical gloves were taking turns going in and out of the house, helping each other carry pieces of familiar machinery that Robot couldn't place.

A forth man, wearing the same get-up, came out of the giant metal cube, carrying a small box. But as soon as he crossed the doorway, the old tape holding the box together gave way, and the bottom of the box came open, littering the Jones's yard with... punch cards?

The man uttered a curse and bent down to begin picking up the mess. The recent rain and snow had made the yard damp, and several of the punch cards that landed in mud spots would be ruined. But the unsuspecting human wasn't able to get more than a handful off of the ground before an angry, laser-toting, super-strong, adolescent automaton came sprinting in his direction. "WHAT are you doing?! Those are my grandfather's! Put those back right now, _thief_!"

The man, who couldn't have been older than thirty, if that, looked to the older-looking men that were with him with wild eyes for help. The other humans, who'd just stepped out of the back of the open van, stopped and eyed Robot tensely.

He turned to them, heat pushing against the back of his narrowed eyes. "I don't know how you got into my home, but leave, now! Before I call the police!"

"Robot Jones, you are making a scene!" Mom unit called out, rushing out of the house and putting her pump arms on Robot's shoulders, lowering her voice once she got close enough. "Stop it this instant!"

"Who are these people, and what gives them a right to be touching Grampz unit's-?"

"I will explain to you," she cut him off, "If you calm down, and give me a second."

Rattling as he calmed down, Robot felt heat escaping his vents, and looked up at his mother, waiting.

Mrs. Jones sighed, letting go of her son's shoulders. "We-your father and I-were planning on telling you, but among everything that is going on, with us and with you, we hadn't had a chance. As it is, we only got the notice on Monday-and even that's early notice for us robots by human standards. I suppose it's our fault that you're finding out this way."

"Finding out what?" Robot asked, the courage in his voice dying away.

"Your grandfather has been selected to join a variety of units being housed at the Museum of Technology in New York City," Mom unit explained, articulating slowly, but impassively. "He will be a living display piece."

" _What_?" Robot asked, feeling his steely legs turn to gelatin. "But he's not-but he's supposed to be with us! Always!"

"That's what we presumed, too," Mom unit said, a bit more tender this time. "But Robot, things are changing. The plans that we've had ten years ago are not unfolding the way we thought they would, between the merger and everything else." She gestured outwards, somewhere west, towards the setting sun in the distance. "Grampz unit is getting older, and frankly, Robot Jones, so are we-your father and I. And now that I'm picking up work at the factory again, I can't afford to keep up his care. Neither your father nor I have the time, or the energy, for his well being. It has to happen, Robot Jones."

"That can't be true!" Robot shouted at her. "Grampz wouldn't want this! Not if he could speak up about it right now!" He looked left and right. "I-I-I'll quit school! I'll abandon my mission. You and dad can go to work. I'll stay home with him and change his bulbs and mend his chips, and reboot his system every day! I will take care of him, I know I can! Please, mom, don't let this happen!"

Mom unit's 'shush'ing covered up the emotional break in Robot's voice, near the end. "Even if I didn't think this was for the best," she said, softly, as they both watched the movers slowly resume their work, "It's out of my control. He's been sold him to the museum to make up the loss for keeping him thus far. I don't have the money to justify keeping him."

At once, harsh reality came down on the still young robot like a crashing wave. Money. This all came down to money. And in the depths of his circuitry birthed a frustration, intense and burning, that there was an amount of currency that mattered more to someone in that factory than the dignity of keeping an old, respectable computer AI with his family.

Suddenly, Robot bolted, from his mother's grasp, all the way down the yard, to the sidewalk, up the large ramp leading into the back of the van and inside.

The van had to be huge, to hold a supercomputer. But even then, most of Grampz's various parts had to be broken down into smaller segments in order to fit the given space. The little automaton felt nauseous, seeing parts of machinery he'd seen together all of his life, taken apart. Apart, to be moved. The great supercomputer had been reduced to pieces.

"Grampz! Can you hear me?" Robot shouted, climbing the boxes and segmented, square parts of his grandfather in order to reach the great horn, that had been hooked up to his hearing receptor. The rotary wheels that made up his face, and all his screens were dark, but Robot was used to waking him up. "I won't stand by and let this happen to you! I won't let you become a museum piece! You will be vindicated! Do you hear me?"

"Sorry, kid," said one of the men. "That old computer's been turned off for the move-it's safer this way, for preserving him."

Robot turned on his heel, and hopped down from the boxes, noticing for the first time the museum's little insignia on the right breast of what he thought was their plain black sweaters. "If you and your men do not take the utmost care of this machine," he said to this one man with a fiery glower, "I will personally walk to New York, non-stop, and make you all regret it. Do you understand?"

The human took a fearful step back. "We're... just the movers. But uh, I'll let the technicians know."

"Now, if you could move," said another man, this one heavier and less sympathetic sounding. "We gotta be on the road in thirty and we've still got a dozen boxes to cram in here."

Robot shifted his gaze to this man, then to the expanse of the van, and then slowly nodded. He marched down the ramp with soldier precision, joining his mother at her side, watching the four humans take turns, going into their house-their home-and dragging out the smaller parts that collectively made up a single, old computer. Printer paper, spare bulbs, date and time cards-the ones Robot had been forgetting to replace these days, and the reason Grampz was having a hard time keeping track of time, until he was hooked up to the internet.

One of the last things the movers brought into the van was that broken box of punch cards. Grampz unit had once relied on these for others to communicate with him, before being upgraded a few decades ago with the technology to hear and understand spoken language. There were a total of three boxes of these punch cards left, and while they had become obsolete to this particular computer years ago, represented his functionality from when he was first designed. It made sense that the museum would want them. In that respect, Robot lost some of his anger-towards the museum men, at least. They cared more about Grampz than his monetary value.

As soon as the men finally shut the van's back doors. Mrs. Jones sighed. "Come on, we shouldn't stay. This dampness isn't good on anybody's machinery."

She gestured him inside, but Robot remained stone still. He felt like he had had to pry eyes of the spot in the street where the huge van had sat with force. Like if he looked away, he was accepting that this was real.

"Robot?"

When the teenager turned and looked at her, his face was full of disdain. Mrs. Jones tilted her head back with surprise, and just before she spoke again, Robot backed away, keeping his eyes on her.

After some tentative steps, he broke that stare, turned around and trudged forward into the home, with the door still wide open. And unlike countless evenings since he had begun school, the first thing he did before looking at his homework, before having a can of oil, before turning on the television, was head downstairs.

Like the front door, the one leading down to the basement had been propped wide open, made easier for the men to carry up the parts of Robot's grandfather, and all that belonged to him. There was an uneasy feeling, standing in the doorway of the basement that Robot had never felt before. Vacancy was almost as eerie as death. And the automaton swore that even his feet echoed going down the steps.

Robot had never really noticed just how massive their basement was. Most houses, those owned by humans, had small basements-if they even had them-with a dozen pillars, a low ceiling, and the comforting scent of laundry detergent. But the Jones' basement was twelve feet high, and twice as wide as their living room. And with far less laundry needed to be done for the Jones family, and no washing machines in the house, the basement had one purpose and one purpose only.

And now that Grampz was gone, that purpose was over. The room sat empty-two times as big as his bedroom upstairs, with the only things left being a few PVC pipes, some stray, blank papers, and a simple spiderweb near the window, with its tiny, eight-legged designer waiting for a meal.

Robot moved to the center of the room, walking over a floor with dust bunnies and various pieces of litter, to the place where he would go to be Grampz' audience, and sat down, right on the floor, staring at the now-exposed wall, with its broken panels and wires spilling out.

The memories of coming to this very spot, just a few years ago, started playing back in his head. Random clips that popped on, like unprompted videos on a computer screen behind his eyes. Before he started school, the little robot could sit there for hours, talking to the wise, old computer-asking him what he thought about his ideas, and if he was justified feeling the things he felt about the world. And Grampz would listen. Once in a while, Grampz would spin a story of his own, but for the most part, Grampz had been the listener.

This was opposite the way Robot had come to understand the relationship between his human counterparts and their own grandparents was, if said grandparents were still around. It seemed in human culture, the senior would be the story weaver, and the child, the captive audience.

In that moment, Robot could've smacked himself for not being able to recall a single one of Grampz' stories in full. How much time had he wasted, running his mouth about trivial matters, while the old computer had years and years of stories and wisdom, just waiting to be exposed?

Maybe that's what Grampz had been waiting for: For Robot to become old enough to become the listener. Instead, the teenager had gone off with his friends. Built a life outside of the home that he'd never had before. And Grampz had waited for Robot's infrequent visits back, never once taking the frustration of loneliness out on his grandson.

Robot recalled the very last time he'd ventured down to the basement without a problem on his mind that he needed to vent about. How awkward it was. How hard it was to come up with anything to talk about. Why? Why was it _now_ , staring at the clean, blank square on the wall where the metal panels retained the same sheen it they, fresh out of the factory, that Robot could think of a million things to say?

Selfishly, the worst of all was that now Robot had no one to go to about Isaac and the robot rebellion. Grampz had grumbled to himself and to Robot about AI superiority for years. If anybody knew how some amateur robot anarchists would try to get their voices heard, it would be him.

But now, Robot wouldn't even be able to talk to Grampz until they had him turned back on at the museum. Who knew how long that would take? Even if Robot could trust Grampz would be OK, the old computer could be sitting in the van for weeks, waiting for his exhibition space to be completed. Robot needed advice, _soon_.

"Robot? Come on, now. Don't you want to talk about this?"

It took Robot a minute to realize someone had spoken to him. He turned his head to the top of the staircase, where the kitchen light spilling down to the floor below was broken by a shadow silhouette of a familiar square shebot.

"Robot-"

"Leave me alone," Robot shouted out, suddenly.

"But I..." Mom unit started, but his stinging expression made her trail off. She stayed there, just a little while longer. In their silence, both automatons heard the trickle of an ambulance siren somewhere off in the distance. The walls were soundproof, had to be coming in from the little basement window, on the wall to his right. The same window that Socks had used to find Robot after the tiff they'd had about the rope swing, the night the new laser game at the arcade came out. It was hard enough not being able to talk to his best friend anymore, but now Grampz too?

After a while, the message must have sank in, and Mrs. Jones turned her wheels as quietly as she could, and rolled out of the doorway.

They should be morning Grampz' move together, but it was the last thing Robot wanted. She gave in, so easily. He didn't think he could ever, ever forgive his mother for this.

Then again, he longer he sat, he wondered what _could_ have been done.

When he eventually did climb the stairs again, and headed for his room, there was a surprise waiting for him. On his desk sat his father's newspaper from that morning, protecting the surface of the metal desk from the wetness of the punch cards that had landed in the snow. All he had left of Grampz in his physical grasp.

Robot picked up the one on the very top of the pile. There were only five there, but they seemed to have been arranged in a particular order. And the first one that mom unit wanted Robot to see had been a communication between Robot and Grampz, back when Robot was just a year old. Back when they were still living at the factory, before his upgrade to be able to hear. It occurred to him only then, just what a miracle it was that the family managed to keep most of these with them, even through a move.

There were only a few hole punches on this one, and though it had been a long time, Robot translated them into words it almost immediately. It was so long ago, and so young into Robot's activation years that he couldn't even recall what this specific conversation was about. But the words on the card made him sway woozily on his feet, feeling their irony as the statement echoed in his head as if he'd said it yesterday.  
 _  
Humans cannot be all that bad._

* * *

 **In this chapter, Robot visits the factory again and makes an unpleasant run in with his former supervisor, Nutz, and Crystal confides to our protag what she discovered about the teenage robots have organized to plot against the merger. And when Robot comes home for advice, he finds an unexpected change.**

I know the gaps between these updates are ridiculous. 

Comments/Criticism/Spam I don't care, say anything.

 _Whatever Happened to Robot Jones?_ © Greg Miller & Cartoon Network


	32. The Most Abused Cog

"Denny Yogman?"

The shorter, squatter Yogman peered up from his corner of the tabletop, only to glare into the eyes of his nemesis; his social-and for all intensive purposes, mortal-enemy.

Two years ago, just the sight of one of the Yogmans would send Robot's body into defense mode, claws flying to his bulb to protect them from greedy, unwashed hands. But this wasn't the case anymore. Only slightly taller, with his bulb making up most of the difference, the automaton could pose intimidation over the singular brother if he wanted to, even without busting out his lasers (not that he could. They were controlled by his emotions anyway.) But it wasn't in Robot's nature to bully himself into winning an argument, especially if he had a much more powerful intellectual argument to make.

It was only two days ago that Robot had come home to make the painful discovery of Grampz's departure. With no other unit to go to about Isaac, Davvy and Phillips, Robot had had to mull over who to go to now. He knew from the moment yesterday that he told Crystal about the Yogmans that he was going to regret it. But they were the only technically-competent humans Robot could think to make something out of this information. Mr. Mitchell was the other possibility, but being the adult he was, and being a part time counselor now, he'd be obligated to tell the authorities about this. And Robot grimaced at the thought of the police getting involved in this.

The only thing that could challenge a plan for a robotic rebellion was a plan for a rebellion, starting with the enslavement of a robot-that being himself. Robot's bullies were the last humans he wanted any help from, but they were also the only ones who might have any idea what Isaac and the robots were planning to do, and how to squash it before it happened.

Robot would have cast a shadow over the devo-hat sporting boy, if the lights were on.

In the far back of the chemistry lab-the same one Clara's father had paid to rebuild-Denny had made himself comfortable in the darkened classroom, with his scientific supplies surrounding him as he worked with a bunsen burner. Aside from the flame it produced, strapped to Denny's head was a small headlamp-the only other source of light in the room, and his work light. Even a C-average student could figure that he had not turned on the classroom light to avoid being spotted.

The automaton wouldn't bother asking how Denny had got himself into a locked classroom that wasn't scheduled to be used for five more hours. The Yogman's had never bothered to adhere to the rules as to where and where they were not allowed on campus, or in the school-particularly the air vents. And these days, respect for locks at the school was at an all time low-even the Ghost Writer who'd broken into _The Gab_ 's storage room to steal a typewriter didn't give a care. As it was, Denny had left the room unlocked for when he exited, and Robot had not needed to noisily break the lock off in order to get the room.

The Yogman gave Robot the acknowledgement of eye contact before resuming his work, as if he was still all alone. Given his history with the Yogman's as a pair, this was a fairly mild reaction to Robot's unbenounced arrival. Still, Robot was expected at least a verbal acknowledgement, even if it involved the phrase "get lost!" or the exchange of some cuss words that would get them both sent to detention.

"Listen," Robot sighed, "I am aware that I am probably the last individual you would imagine sharing a frank conversation with. However, given the time that has elapsed between our last unpleasant run in and now, I beseech you to consider the possibility of perhaps... giving me some advice."

With a jolt, Denny lowered his wrench. Clutched in the tool's teeth was a piece of metal with some wires. Robot wasn't positive, but it appeared the human had been trying to solder some sort of little circuit board. Could it belong to another amateur robot he had been trying to build? Whatever it was, using the bunsen burner as a torch was... awfully clever. Especially given that welding torches were difficult for minors to attain. Robot supposed the Yogman's didn't earn their genius titles for nothing.

"Advice?" Denny demanded with the tone of a dog, snapping at a home intruder. "For what?"

"Exactly at what you're best at," Robot explained. "Plotting rebellion."

Denny snorted. "Forget it!"

"Denny, this is a matter that threatens to turn yours and my lives upside down," Robot said, grimly. "If it goes too far."

"If you want help with any planning," Denny shot back, "Take it up with the jerk with dinosaur breath. He's the one with the schemes to take over the school. I do technical stuff. Always have, always will!"

Robot stood back and watched with a brand new comprehension, as Denny went right back to his work. Now that he'd thought about it, the automaton had never seen Lenny's hands at work with any of the devices used to try to capture and/or torture himself. Tech was always Denny's deal. Robot wondered why he'd never noticed this before-possibly because he had been encouraged from day one to think of the Yogmans as a two-headed singular entity.

But if Denny wasn't involved in the planning of Lenny's schemes, than had he come to the wrong brother?

He still had to try. "You were only not involved in the planning because Lenny didn't let you, did he?" Robot asked. "He just generated the idea and expected you to fill in the details for how to get it done."

Denny didn't respond, but his gloved hands gradually pulled away from the flame once more.

"I bet you could make plans just as well as Lenny, if not better."

Denny sat there, staring at his work. For such a short adolescent, he had the expression of a forty year old, up to his eyeballs in tax files. Competent in what he was doing, but overwhelmed by the workload.

Like a hairpin in a lock, Robot felt something finally giving way. Denny was listening to him. And suddenly he wasn't sure how he felt about it.

Clearly, the Yogmans were in the middle of some sort of disagreement, one that wasn't going away very quickly. So there was a reason there were separated at the moment, after all. Had Robot pointed out the flaw in Lenny's domination of the pair at the perfect time? Was it unfair to the brothers that he should be doing this?

He didn't know why he cared. These were the _Yogmans,_ for crying out loud. But still, it felt like there was a special place in the underworld for little robots that turned fraternal brothers, once joined at the hips, against each other.

Denny folded his arms on the desk, but continued to refuse to meet Robot's gaze. "How'd you even know where I was?"

"Well, the school has you scheduled for P.E. this period," Robot explained, coming close enough to rest his right arm on his side of the tabletop, like a cop leaning over a perp. "So I knew I could cross off the gym from the list of places you might be."

"You're so witty, Jones!" Denny snapped, throwing his fist against the black-painted tabletop, and finally looking Robot in the eyes. "You sure they didn't design you to be a clown? Entertaining at birthday parties?"

"Are you going to help me?" Robot asked. "Or not?"

Denny drummed his fingers on the table, bunsen burner still brightly lit, just inches from his fingers. He reached beneath the table and turned the valve that at last extinguished both the gas, and the flame. "What's in it for me?"

"I can't believe I had to promise Denny a regular supply of computer equipment until the end of the semester," Robot complained, shaking his head. "Just to get some advice. Thankfully there's plenty in storage from the factory at home."

"That's what you get for bargaining with a Yogman," Cubey told him.

"Believe me, if I thought anybody else could help me on this matter, I would have sought them out instead," Robot sighed. "I just hope Denny proves the same loyalty to me that he did for Lenny back when they were talking."

The last of Robot's sentence was silenced by a roar in the distance.

Before the start of what would have been their regularly scheduled 7th period class, Robot and the outcasts of Polyneux made their way down to the mandatory assembly taking place in the thundering gym. The three main doors were locked in the open position, but the hallway outside was congested with bodies,as the entire school was instructed to head inside at once for the biggest pep rally of the year: The annual school pride assembly.

"Oh boy, here we go again," Mitch muttered under his breath, as they approached the overwhelming hub-bub.

"They make us sit through these stupid assemblies every-" Cubey said, being cut off having to dodge wild students chasing each other by zooming left and right on his skates. "Ugh. Year. Does anybody even like them?"

"Sure, if you're a cheerleader," Tom said, thoughtfully. While he was too shy to comment about girls, his eyes did flit over to some particularly loud and animated girls in the long yellow sleeve shirt and short skirts, standing by the nearest throng of lockers to the gym.

"Interestingly, my optical sensors don't detect Clara anywhere," Robot noticed, speaking out loud as he scanned the cheerleaders he passed. _Or Stacey unit, for that matter._

"Probably gearing up for this thing. Pep rallies are her Olympics, aren't they?" Mitch asked.

"Tally told me the girls were bragging about having a big show to celebrate going to the state championship," Tom explained. "Might take up half of the rally's time."

"Oh, is Tally the name of your new _girlfriend_?" asked Mitch with a smirk, making Tom blush. News about him being in a relationship had spread to the rest of the group of friends, but Robot was the only one who knew that Tom and Tally had never partaken in kissing yet. And he wasn't sure how he felt about being the keeper of such a personal secret.

"Oh, perfect," Cubey groaned. "So we're not even gonna have time for the game where Ms. Wilson gets to call on students to answer trivia and get get-out-of-detention free cards? Come on, guys, we're 8th graders! We're upperclassmen now! Let's all just ditch-nobody will know!"

"Will you quit griping?" Shannon finally spoke up. "We could ditch, but we're _not_ ," she said, stopping Cubey with her body, "because we're here to support one person: Stacey. She's going to state too, and we're very proud of her. Now, move!"

Cubey grunted, and moved. Shannon didn't strike the same fear into his heart that Pam did, but she _had_ picked up a thing or two from Cubey's forceful-natured crush.

Mitch bumped his cube-solving best buddy in the shoulder. "It won't be so bad. At least we get to see more of the cheerleaders."

Cubey smirked back. "Right. As if you're going to be looking at _them."_

"What's that supposed to mean?" Mitch said, stopping dead in his tracks. His sneakers, which only appeared on his feet three months out of the year, squeaked on the freshly waxed floor, courtesy of Clancy.

"Oh, you know..." Cubey said, starting to whistle mockingly and skate on ahead of the group, in graceful zig-zags.

Shannon gave Mitch a concerned look, to which the headphone-wearing boy ignored, and walked onward towards the gym, now with a scowl. If Mitch had interpreted that remark as an insinuation that he would prefer to be looking at the athletes over the cheerleaders, than Mitch would have been justified in being angry. But Robot, watching on in curious silence like the data collector he was, didn't think that's what Cubey meant. And when June passed, he happened to notice her twirling a strand of black hair around her finger nervously, and biting her lip.

Passing the threshold of the gymnasium, three thousand student's outdoor voices joined together to form a sound that went from grating, to deafening. In the middle of the room, a series of long, yellow, cushioned mats were laid out in parallel lines to the bleachers to create a perfect square. Far off in the back of the room, out of the equipment closet, McMcMc was struggling to drag the last mat, prematurely unrolled, when Mr. Workout approached him, visibly sighed, and took it out of his hands. McMcMc stood there, folding his arms across his chest, and looking emasculated.

"8th graders?"

The band of outcasts including Robot and Shannon turned and saw that Coach had called out to them. Standing before the first line of the court with a clipboard, he thrust his finger to the far left-side bleachers. "To the left, all the way down! Don't clog the walkway!"

"Jeez," Tom muttered, as the group filtered through the narrow strip between the open bleachers and the court. "Does he ever turn off his coach-mode?"

"Only when they lock him up in the closet at night for sleeping," Mitch said, looking to Robot. "Right, RJ?"

"Huh? _Oh_ ," Robot said, feeling heat surface on his metallic cheeks. "A robot joke. I see..." Lately the robot jokes were coming fast enough to him that he was able to at least give a slightly clever retort back, but the sounds and crampedness of the gym were distracting.

Not to mention that aside from Stacey and Clara, his eyes were peeled for sight of someone else.

The bleachers were divided into four sections, with the 6th and 7th graders on one side, and the 8th graders and various school staff to the other-just in case the graduating class got a little too rowdy, they were seated across from the only people who would remind them that they were still at school. While a spot at the bottom would have been preferable, they were all occupied by bigger, stronger, more popular 8th graders. Without even asking, Robot, Shannon and company climbed higher.

Robot forced himself to remember Socks' new hair and clothes, but even as he ascended the stairs with the others, he didn't see his ex-best friend anywhere.

It became quite clear apparently why Cubey, leading the group on his skates the way he'd done in the halls, had chosen the third row from the top, as sitting on the far left of a long stretch of empty bench was Pam Simon. He took the seat on the bench next to her, and while they didn't say anything, the two exchanged a nod. It looked entirely unromantic to Shannon, but she figured, 'not my relationship. Not my business.' Though she was curious about the vacancy of the bench and if Pam had arranged with Cubey to save the entire stretch for her companions. Given Pam's forceful nature, it wasn't hard to believe she could make this happen.

The remaining kids all scooted in and sat down. And when Mitch seated himself next to Cubey, both turned to Robot. "No sign of ol' compadre?" asked the headphone wearing boy, briefly removing the device from his ears so that he could hear better.

Knowing exactly who they were talking about, Shannon glowered a little. And _not_ so easily determining who they were talking about, June raised an eyebrow at her, curiously. To the boys, Robot just shook his head. "I will turn on my friend-seeking vision, but I don't think he's here."

"That'll be a surprise, given the way he used to love staring at all the girls before he made the basketball-" Cubey said, before the sound of a foghorn cut off every small conversation in the room. Several of the students, mostly 6th graders, threw their hands over their ears and cried out in pain.

The remaining students trickling into the room who had no part in the assembly scattered for their designated sections, like mice running for a hole in the wall. Before long, Mr. Workout, the Coach, Polyneux's only female gym teacher, Ms. Reblin, and Ms. Wilson-dressed in jeans and a T shirt, instead of her normal secretary clothes all came together on top of the freshly laid mats, while Gretchen Wilson held the microphone. "Let's start off this pep rally right: Which grade do you think can get the loudest for the Rainbows?"

The students of Polyneux joined together in a collective scream.

Ms. Wilson nodded at a silent hand gesture Mr. Workout made at her, estimating how much time she needed to stall, before pointed to the 6th grade bleachers for the start of the traditional war-of-the-grades. "6th graders! This is your first assembly, so I'm gonna explain how this works. If you wanna win this challenge, you have to get loud-as loud as you can! But do you think you can get loud for the Rainbows as the upperclassmen? Come on, underdogs, show those older kids what you got!"

The sixth graders' went wild. The youngest and more hazed students were yanking their hair, jumping up and down on the bleachers, doing anything and everything to be seen, and be heard. They were fresh out of elementary school, loaded with pre-pubescent energy, and even with their premature voices, made quite a racket. The shrill quality of their voices in particular made them hard to ignore, even by the students who were plugging their ears with their fingers.

" _Very_ nice," Ms. Wilson said into the microphone. "Now," she turned to the seventh graders' bleachers, seated right next to them. "Seventh graders, you already know how this works. You're the middle graders, you've gotten over the hump! You should have the most school spirit-come on, seventh graders!"

Just like the sixth, the seventh graders generated a great thunder of noise. Right away, the differences in the voices were apparent, as more of the boys in seventh had already begun the voice change, but not all. The chorus of the 7th grader's voices was the most unharmonious of the lot, and the bodies that rose from the bleachers were the most drastically uneven-some kids as tall as the eighth graders, some as short as the shortest of sixth graders. It was the big divide.

"Ohhh, sixth graders, I think the seventh graders got you beat," Ms. Wilson teased. She turned on the heel of her rarely-seen sneakers, and pointed somewhere in the vicinity of Robot and his friends. "And now here's the eight graders-the big shots-the ones on top. Eighth graders, this is your last year to show your school spirit, so you show your rainbow pride, right here, right now! You want the underclassmen to beat you? Come on, I wanna hear you!"

Almost every body in the eight grade bleachers shot up around them, and the sound created was unreal. Even if the war between the grades was stupid, even if they had been the ones to stubbornly keep their seat in the bleachers in seventh grade, they weren't doing it now. No eighth grader wanted to have an underclassmen beat them. The wave of age superiority was too infectious. Even Cubey and Mitch, who had scoffed at the idea of the assembly, stood and joined the chorus of meaningless screams. Ms. Wilson said something into the microphone, but Robot couldn't pick it up over his hearing receptor, because the noise had created a wall around him.

Though they had rose from their seats as well in the wave of motion, Robot and Shannon had been the only eighth graders-that they were aware of, anyway-who made no noise of their own. Both of them were less curious about who would win the grade-wars, and more curious about Mr. Workout's tapping his foot on the floor, impatiently.

"Since when did cheerleaders need safety mats?" Robot thought out loud, giving Shannon a questioning look.

"They don't, normally," Shannon admitted. "This has gotta be part of some stupid routine Clara thought up..."

"Ooohh, eighth graders!" Ms. Wilson said into the microphone. "This is gonna be close. But who's to say only the students can have a good show of school spirit?" She turned to the bleachers on the left of the eighth graders. "Can Polyneux's own staff get louder than all of you?"

All the teachers who had been awkwardly piled up in the bleachers, as if they made up the total of Grade Zero, rose from their seats. At once, all the teachers, even the ones who adhered to a strict personal policy of quiet maturity, furiously clapped their hands, shouted and whistled for the cause for which they had dedicated a part of their lives to-this very school.

"It's gonna be a landslide!" Ms. Wilson shouted, before handing the microphone to Mr. Workout.

"We'll be announcing the winner of this year's school spirit at the end of the assembly," the friendly gym teacher explained. "Let's just see if you seventh graders can catch up when we bring out the talent..."

The seventh grade bleachers began screaming in angry protests. Robot grimaced, realizing if he had started school just one year later, he'd be a part of the grade that was being lampooned. No matter how immersed he became in the middle school experience, rallies always seemed so barbaric to him. He only put up with them when Socks became a player on the basketball team, and Shannon had become a cheerleader. And even though he was terribly upset with him, Robot found himself using his regular seeking vision tactics to hunt for the acne covered, smelly boy he used to call a best friend, as if nothing had changed.

 _Is that the best you can do?_

In the girls locker room, Stacey had just pulled on her freshly washed cheerleading dress, and gave herself a look in her locker door mirror. As tiny as it was, it was free of anyone's judgemental eyes but her own. She was expecting the dress to fit looser, like it fit before it went into the laundry machine, and was disgusted to discover not an extra wrinkle of fabric on her body anywhere. Someone well rested, well fed, and generally more well of mind, might assume a wash in hot water had shrunk the looser fitting dress. But in Stacey's state of mind, it meant only one thing: The scale had lied. She hadn't lost any weight in the past week at all.

A mocking voice in her head clicked its tongue.

 _Sad, really._

"Stacey!"

Stacey Watkins spun around and beheld the only face on the cheerleading team that looked worse than her own. "Clara... you look terrible," Stacey found herself saying, bluntly.

The captain of the squad had dark, sleepless rings under her eyes that she hadn't even tried to cover up with makeup. Her dark purple lipstick, which she only wore for drills with an audience, was quickly smothered over cracked lips. And her usually smooth hair was standing up on all sides. Pride was probably the only thing keeping her from putting it up in a ponytail, like Stacey always did to her own.

"It doesn't matter," Clara said quickly, shaking her head (and Stacey almost believed her). "Listen, Robin was supposed to get back from her doctor's appointment by now but her mom's car broke down. She won't get back in time. I need you to take her place in the set."

Stacey felt herself gently swaying back and forth on her ankles. Uncomfortable silence fell over them. "But that's... the bottom right base."

"Yes! The final pose won't work unless we have seven girls at the bottom, and you're the only one I could ask! _Please_ , Stacey! I'll make it up to you!"

Stacey felt her inner conscious, leaning on the suddenly huge, suddenly glowing red 'no' button. The one that would finally break her out of this spell. The word was right there, under her tongue. No. No. Like it was the most familiar word in the English language.

But when she saw the desperation in Clara's eyes, and her brain betrayed her by replaying that statement from Workout again:

 _I don't think she realizes how lucky she is to have a friend like you..._

She bit her lip, so hard it almost bled.

Stacey couldn't say it. "Alright," she uttered, instead.

"Thank you, thank you," Clara said quickly, hurrying up to the gym without so much as an affectionate touch of the shoulder. Actually, for doing this big of a favor, Stacey felt like a hug was in order. Clara sure had no issue about hugging her boyfriends in public.

Maybe this is just what Stacey got for being Ms. Popular's best friend.

" _There he is!"_ Robot shouted.

As the audience of children gradually lost steam, members of Polyneux's various athletics teams, fashionably late and all dressed in their street attire, slipped through the front doors and sat in the bleachers directly opposite Robot and company. Among them was a boy with jet black hair that was curling on the ends from an unmaintained straightening.

"That traitor, he's sitting with the basketball players!" Mitch shouted.

"I never thought he'd treat the team like a second set of friends," Cubey said, thoughtfully for once.

"Neither did I," Robot said, putting on a sad expression. At the bottom middle bleacher on their opposite side, Socks-or as he rather be called these days, 'Tim'-was seated right next to Vinny, one of his closest team members. While the other athletic boys were laughing and shoving each other, Vinny was nodding and listening to something Socks was telling him.

"And here comes Clara," Shannon noted, pointing to the dishwater blond girl, rocketing up the girl's locker room steps. "Probably gonna give lover boy some attention before she goes on."

And on cue, that's exactly what happened: Clara ran to the teams, found Socks, exchanged some words that were inaudible beneath Ms. Wilson's voice on the microphone, kissed him, and took off.

Or at least, that's all that appeared to happen, to Robot and his friends.

"And I've been trying to tell her for days," Socks told Vinny in a near-breathless voice. "Because I don't know who else I can talk to about something this impor-"

"Wait, ain't that her?" asked Vinny, cutting Socks off, and pointing to the girl in purple lipstick, rapidly approaching them.

"Clara!" Socks shouted, surprised to suddenly see her, running towards him. "Where have you been? I've called you for days! Why didn't you pick up?"

The captain stopped in her tracks, looking a little confused to be confronted. "I'm out of the house a lot, Tim, you know that." Clara said back to him, trying to speak in a half-sweet voice, but clearly not having the patience to make it convincing enough. "I'll make it up to you," she told Socks, just like she told Stacey. "I promise."

Vinny, who'd been sitting next to Socks, gagged and scooted over for a second so Clara could briefly press her lips on Socks'. For a boy who used to secretly worry that no girl would ever kiss him-least of all someone so pretty and popular-he didn't think it was normal. But every kiss they shared now was less and less exciting, less passionate. Less everything. And it must have showed, because Clara gave Socks the briefest insulted look before walking off.

With her gone, Vinny slid back next to Socks and cocked an eyebrow at him. "You were saying?"

But Socks 'humphed' and turned away. He didn't feel like talking about it anymore.

"Man, you are a lucky dude," cried out one of Polyneux's junior football players, slapping Socks on the black. "Out of all the people here, she chose you."

"Lucky," Socks said, looking at his black shoes, so new they still smelled more like plastic instead of corn chips. "Sure."

"And we're proud to announce that the Cheerleading team is going to be representing us at state-an honor that hasn't been seen at this school since 1959!" Mr. Workout announced into the microphone, as Ms. Wilson finding her way back to the bleachers. "In celebration of their achievement, the girls have prepared a special routine that hasn't been attempted since the high school championship of 1979. Give a warm welcome to your 1987 Winter Cheerleaders!"

The audience roared. Half mature enough to celebrate the sight of some pretty girls, and half immature enough to take the excuse to get as loud in school as they could. The 6th grade bleachers had the strongest divide, with some of the shyer kids too afraid to make so much as a peep, while the others were screaming like kids running wild at a pizza place at somebody's birthday party. One bolder boy near the top even stood up on the bleachers and pulled up his shirt, showing off his bare chest as if it were painted. Without a doubt, Robot's friends knew the 6th graders had won the war-of-the-grades this year.

In a way, it was a relief. Losing to the underclassmen sucked, but, surely, none of them were _that_ embarrassing just two years ago, right?

Clara was the first to appear, taking her train of silent, diligent girls along the perimeter of the safety mats. The last girl in the line was Stacey, who was not last because of her spot on the pyramid, but because she'd had to go up the stairs carefully so as not to get lightheaded. None of the other girls seemed to notice.

But her vertigo and shaking limbs took a backseat, as soon as the music started drifting towards them from the bass-amplifying speakers. Somehow, hearing it over the speakers instead of Workout's portable cassette player put her body in action. Stacey felt herself losing her individuality her weakness, as she became part of something greater, a cog in a machine. She followed the moves of the beginning floor routine with no issue, twirling her baton and flying beneath a threshold made of the other girl's arms. She even managed her back-flips alright, one after another after another. Although on the very last one, she felt herself almost loose her footing, and stumbled a bit on the landing.

"Go on, Stacey!" Shannon shouted, standing up in the bleachers. "Show 'em what you're made of!"

"I don't believe she can hear you, Shannon," Robot noted, nervous to inform her. Stacey was right in the middle of another back-flip, a tricky one that required her to jump over another girl, and landed face away from the 8th grade bleachers.

"I don't think she _cares_ ," Pam muttered to herself, just as Stacey rolled from that trick, right into a flawless cartwheel. "What a show off. Just like the rest of 'em."

Shannon turned and glared at her. In that moment, something inside her snapped. She grabbed the automaton seated next to her by his shoulders. "Hold still."

"Wait, what are you-?" Robot started, but quickly realized what Shannon was doing.

By turning Robot's left hearing receptor two notches to the left, Shannon caused his mouth to jut out a speaker, from which the girl used as her makeshift megaphone. (Using the megaphone _had_ been her favorite part of cheerleading). She shouted directly into his left antenna, which carried her voice like a microphone, through his hearing receptor, and out of his mouth at an ear-splitting volume.

"GO ON STACEY! WE'VE GOT YOUR BACK!"

Robot's entire body to rattle with the sound of her voice. Robot's speaker practically trumped the sound of the gym's music speakers, and made the surrounding students, Mitch, Cubey, June, Tom, and Pam, to scoot away.

Much against Pam's belief, Stacey cared enough to look up that time. And a warm smile crossed her tired face, though she didn't pay her friends attention for too long.

Her eyes were on the bleachers on the opposite side.

Just when it felt like she was getting her second wind, Clara made the motion to begin setting up the two-high pyramids. These were the standard pyramid formations where two girls held one more third girl above their heads in their hands. And while they were easy for a cheerleader with two years of training, Stacey was still a base in this one, and had to concentrate on spotting the person who's life was literally on her shoulders.

The flyer, the girl at the top who performed the spinning and body contorting in the other girl's arms, did a fantastic job-at least from Stacey's vanish point. She was too concentrated on moving her feet and keeping her shaky arms level with the other base girl. She was sort of curious how Clara was doing, being the flyer on top of another pair of girls, considering how shaky she looked in the locker room.

Back when Shannon was on the team, Stacey was still learning all the basics herself, and even though she wasn't as quick and nimble back then, she ached for those days. She and Shannon had been bases to a shorter girl in the practice two-tier formations, and she felt like their fast friendship made them better teammates. From a textbook standpoint, the core of cheerleading was about trust and communication. Despite Shannon's lack of grace, she and Stacey had effortless communication, and that gave Stacey more confidence in herself. She felt uneasy about having to catch another girl in her arms, but in front of over two thousand students, Stacey did-proving she could be counted on.

Which made her even more determined to do what she had to do now.

"They seem to be forming the big pyramid now," Robot said, his hands over his eyes to reduce glare from the gymnasium lights. "This is their big show-stopping stunt? I seem to recall you doing this in sixth grade. What's so special about it?"

"Captain must've planned something crazy for the top." She turned to Robot with a grimace. "Let's just hope for the sake of the girls at the bottom that this thing is quick. Basing for the pyramid is killer on the arms."

"I'm going to get a drink of water," Pam suddenly announced, standing up in the bleachers. Since she was on the farthest end of the stretch of bench, she was close to the stairs anyway. She merely thumped the back of the head, belonging to the random kid sitting on the steps in front of her, blocking her way, and began descending.

"Wait, don't you want me to come with you?" called June after her, confused.

"Oh, no, I can get it myself. You stay right here," she looked at Shannon, and despite her best efforts to look cool and unbothered, could not hold back her glare from her best friend. "With that one," she pointed.

June looked at a loss for what just happened. When Pam had disappeared far down the court, she turned to Shannon, eyes wild with too many questions to ask at once. " _What_ was that about?"

"It's a long story," Shannon groaned, pinching the bridge of her nose, keeping half a mind on her embarrassment and half on the show.

"Why do you let her talk to you that way?" Mitch asked. His head swiveled briefly in Cubey's direction, and surprisingly, Pam's admirer had nothing to add. He looked as lost as June.

Shannon rubbed her knuckles in her hands thoughtfully. "You know, Mitch," she said, voice starting in her 6th grade mousy tone, and cracking from that into her current, more confident one. "I really don't know."

Stacey felt herself slowing down, as her new spot in the big pyramid sank in. It was a sudden change in the routine that she'd practiced with Clara and the others for weeks, so it made sense that she was mentally preparing for the change. But if gut-clenching hesitation wasn't the other factor, she didn't know what else was.

"Wait a second," Shannon said under her breath. "What's Stacey doing? She's never a base!"

" _What?_ " Robot asked, eyes snapping back into his head. Mitch, Cubey and June turned around to see what was wrong. "What's going on?"

"Stacey shouldn't be at the bottom, she's middle formation-she's always been middle!" Shannon suddenly shouted, rising to her feet in the bleachers again, looking on the edge of panic. "Ooooo, if Clara had something to do with this..."

Down on the floor, Stacey's arms were already starting to quiver, as the girls forming second layer of the pyramid quickly mounted their backs. The worst part about this formation was that while she was facing Socks, she couldn't move her neck upward enough to see what he was doing. She didn't dare turn around to get a peek at the kids in the 8th grade bleachers.

Just six feet away, out of earshot, Workout leaned next to Clara and whispered. "Have they practiced this trick often?"

"Every practice after school for two weeks," Clara said confidently.

"And has Stacey always been a base? I would think she'd be one of the flyers," stated Workout with a confused look.

"She's covering for Keyata today. It's fine, she's practiced as a base before, don't worry," Clara told him, speaking in such a matter that implied that she was the teacher, and he, the student.

Despite this, and a nagging sensation he couldn't peg, Workout kept his mouth shut. It was just for one stunt. Clara knew what she was doing. And Stacey always came through.

On the bleachers with the sports teams, Socks felt himself losing interest in the action on the floor. And it didn't feel right. When the cheerleaders were having a bad day, they still cheered on the team. They still cared. But he didn't remember feeling this lonely in such a long time, since before he met Mitch and Cubey in elementary school.

Even then wouldn't perfectly describe it, because back when he was a clumsy little kid with no guy friends and no older siblings, he still had Shannon, his childhood neighbor and pull-through playmate. There was even a picture of them together on their newly learned two-wheel bikes somewhere in Socks's mom's photo albums.

Socks had intentionally pushed thoughts like these to the back of his head when he realized Robot had a crush on Shannon. It felt weird, trying to get his old best friend, and his new best friend, together. The only way to remedy this was to try and forget just how close he and Shannon used to be. How much he knew about her, that Robot still did not.

Shannon must hate him now. For being that one true confidant, and turning his back on her. And no matter his own frustrations with her, it hurt to know.

He wondered if she felt the same way about Stacey. His eyes moved to the bottom of the pyramid. He didn't know how she could be doing this, holding a bunch of other girls on her back. And that didn't even account for all she put up with as Clara being her captain. Stacey was a tough chick. Tougher than Socks could bite off. Maybe that's why they didn't work out. A gal like that deserved better than a boy who couldn't even make a sentence around her without stammering.

As Socks ran his hands though his black-dyed hair with regret, shifting his gaze shamefully from Stacey back to Clara, he honestly wondered if he had what it takes to be that kind of boy.

Second layer loaded, Stacey felt the third layer of girls go-the layer she herself would have been a part of, normally. It only then occurred to her that if she took Robin's place in the pyramid, that someone else had taken her own. She didn't even have the pleasure of looking up to see who that was. She knew it wasn't Clara. She was a flyer. Always at the top, by her own design.

A pair of unmistakable pink sneakers pressed themselves to the back of Stacey's newly washed uniform. If nothing solidified Clara's trust in Stacey, it was that upon her back and nobody else's she used to climb to the top for the _real_ stunt-a body bucket catch between two girls on top of two layers of others. Thought to be impossible by most of the cheerleaders at Polyneux, Clara had demonstrated via video cassette that the stunt could be done, although she glazed over the fact that the cheerleaders in that video were grown women in college who'd been doing these stunts for a much longer time.

In any event, it felt good to be trusted. To be appreciated. Especially after a certain overweight redhead treated her like she didn't exist.

Although right now, feeling "good" was entirely adrenaline based. It felt like she was supporting twelve hundred pound bags of liquid concrete from touching the floor, and every time they shifted an inch, sparks of pain shot down her wrists.

"That's my man right there," the girl next to Stacey said to the girl second down. "Isn't he cute?"

Stacey had no idea how they were even looking up in their position. But as a wrist above her moved, she felt like she could look up again. She couldn't resist. She had to see what he was doing.

There Socks was, directly in front of her on the bottom bleacher, almost close enough for eye contact. It would have been perfect. But Socks wasn't looking eye level. The black-haired shell of a boy was looking _up.  
_  
And like the world itself was added to Stacey's back, reality settled on her. He was looking at Clara. That was his girl. He would always be looking at her. Stacey was as further from his mind as she could be.

 _You might as well be invisible,_ the voice said. Factually, and unsympathetic.

The world became fuzzier, and fuzzier, until finally, everything went black. And there was the briefest flicker of euphoria before the weight of the world came crushing down on Stacey Watkins.

The most abused cog in the machine had just broken.

* * *

 **In this chapter, Robot seeks advice from a very unlikely source. Stacey gets ready to show off her hard work during the tricky pyramid formation for the school pride assembly, but Clara's last minute request makes her nervous about whether or not she can handle it. And Socks has something to get off his chest, but his girlfriend's selfish nature is making him wish he could still talk to his old friends about it.**

I feel like this chapter might be boring at times, due to the amount of exposition, and I really hope it isn't. I've been really on edge about posting this particular chapter due to the drama about to unfold. Let me know if the characters start to veer out of character and I'll try to revise the writing. Otherwise, I'm letting it gooooooooooooo

Comments/Criticism/Spam I don't care, say anything.

 _Whatever Happened to Robot Jones?_ © Greg Miller & Cartoon Network


End file.
